Art and Arcades

I know it’s only July, but I have already had my first stress dream about school. In the dream I showed up to the wrong school to teach and I was in a grade I hadn’t expected to teach. I had a teaching partner who was an old robot and the students were androids. My job was to plug-in the students and charge them by programming them with repetitive tasks like writing their names over and over. I woke up from the dream and decided that I was not going to even try to unpack that, instead I was going to spend the day with my nieces.

My brother lives in Asia, so I only see him and his family once a year. I am always amazed each year at how my nieces have grown and changed. I always feel like I only get them for a little bit, so I need to soak it all in. Most of the time, we don’t really do anything super fancy, play board games, eat pizza, go to the park, or the river, pick strawberries, swim. Normal things we do around here. I realized that my oldest niece will be going to college soon and I might not get too many more summers. My younger niece was a baby when my parents died and has really only known me during all my trauma of the last years. We haven’t really built memories. I wanted to have some time with them, build memories that they could take home and remember forever.

My nieces have traveled far more than I have and have been to some of the most beautiful and famous places in the world, but I felt like the Denver Art museum would be a big hit. It really is a great space. It’s not like a place just to walk around and look at paintings, it is so much more. The curators are friendly and knowledgeable and go out of their way to guide visitors to a good experience. There are interactive displays to help engage with the art. For example, there was a wooden story book model that could be touched and unfolded right next to a centuries old story book. Getting to touch the model really provides understanding of the complexity of the art. There are videos of artists working through their process, interactive maps, and lots of places to sit down and do art with quality materials.

I was a little disappointed that my brother just delivered one niece to me, but ten minutes into the drive to Denver, I realized that a day alone with my oldest niece was going to be a treat. She is sixteen and just getting ready to be an upperclassman, which in her country is really all about what comes after schooling is over. She is planning on college, so she was telling me about her interest based project (painting) and the difficulties she had with the process. She is also going to a summer program in Japan after her US visit and she was worried about staying in a dorm and if she’d have enough clothes and what the classes might be like. My own kids have been through these experiences of camp and going to college, but it was different with my niece. I didn’t feel like I needed to advise her or reassure her, or worry about her choices. I just could enjoy the conversation.

I didn’t plan our visit around a special exhibit, but it just so happened that our visit coincided with an exhibit of Japanese women and brush strokes. Since my niece is interested in painting and Japan, that exhibit caught her attention right away. The walls were full of centuries of work from princess and pagans hidden in the shadows, finally brought to light. We saw work of one artist who had her arms cut off as a child and learned to paint with the brush handle in her mouth. Her work was delicate and fluid. We ended the visit in a studio, grinding our own ink and painting with fine brushes for as long as we wanted.

After the museum, we had lunch. The day turned out to be the perfect temperature and we sat outside with the tall buildings all around. Everytime I am in the city and I get a moment just to sit and gaze around me, I remember that I love Denver. I love the energy. It makes me feel alive and full of possibility.

After lunch, we went to an art store on Broadway, then checked out an arcade Monica wanted to go to. I have never been much of a gamer, but I did grow up in the eighties, so I have been to arcades and as a teenager spent my fair share of quarters in pinball machines and Ms. Pac-Man. While my own kids dabbled a bit in gaming and I have listened to two decades of students telling me about different games, nothing really prepared me for Round One. First of all, it was the largest arcade I have ever been to. It is in a mall, in one of those defunct department store spaces, but it has been filled with hundreds of pulsating, neon, machines. I thought about my son. I wondered how he would process the lights and noise. I imagine it would like the machines were calling out to him, each vying for attention. It felt a bit like that to me without the schizophrenia. Monica was at home though. She knew how to load credits on her card and headed right for the dancing machines. .She clicked through the screen, even though everything was in Japanese, choosing the music, the pace, the level of difficulty, and then she jammed. I am going to say that I felt like I was getting cardio just from watching her. The machine gave her an A. I got an F on my turn. We did one of those racing games together and it actually felt like I was racing my car through a mountain canyon. I found a version of Pac-man which was definitely more my speed, but it wasn’t the same memorized pattern that is still automatic for me, but more complicated and larger than life. We took our “tickets” which were automatically loaded onto the cards to the “prize” store. Mostly, we saved all the points racked up by my Pac-man prowess, because Monica is hoping to get to take her dad to Round One. My brother would love it. If not, there is a Round One in Tokyo. Monica was telling me that the arcade started in Japan and the one in Tokyo is eight stories high. She said that not only are there video games, but restaurants and a sports complex. The one in Denver has a bowling alley and air hockey, pool, and karaoke rooms. Monica was sweating from the dancing, and so excited to be there. It was awesome to see her so happy.

When I delivered her back to my brother, my younger niece begged me to play a game of pool with her. I told her that I was disappointed that she didn’t come. She told me that she didn’t get up that early. I have to think about night owl activities for that kid.

I drove home happy to have had the day. My niece is growing into such an amazing young woman, but still has the unspoiled excitement of a joyous little kid at her core. It was a pleasure to spend the day just enjoying love. It gave me hope for all the possibilities ahead.