Mardi Gras

I happened to be in Charlotte, NC for a conference on Fat Tuesday.

I happened to read that the Mint Museum of Art stayed open on Tuesday evenings and - even better - admission was free.

So after a long day of conferencing, I begged off of the group-gather-and-go-out-to-dinner thing and took off on a solo adventure in pursuit of art.

The first thing I did wrong was fail to note the museum's address, instead relying on my GPS (purchased on deep discount) (read: full of outdated info) to locate it.

Oh, Gypsy had the Mint Museum in her database - in fact, she had two Mint Museums - but the first was now a medical office park and the second was just plain shut.

Never fear - the intrepid explorer noted in the tiny sign on the boarded-up door that the Mint Museum had relocated - just a few blocks away by the look of the hand-drawn map.

I set off on foot.

Error #2: failing to note the "South" portion of the new address - as in 500 SOUTH Tryon. Obeying an inexplicable impulse, I of course walked in a northerly direction, and discovered at 500 North Tryon a halfway house surrounded by surly homeless men and the permeating aroma of Colt 45.

At this point, I stopped feeling like a feearless art-loving rebel and started feeling like a 45-year-old woman alone in uncomfortable shoes lost on a windswept street in an unfamiliar city. I wished hard to be back in my warm room at the Hilton, collapsing into the plush pillows, falling off my TV-free wagon into a big warm vat of American Idol and channel surfing while scarfing a jumbo-sized packet of peanut M-n-M's.

Bravely, I carried on, walking the seven or so blocks back to where I started and an additional seven or so blocks along South Tryon to the museum. It was cold and I was underdressed. My feet ached. I was hungry. The only thing I had to feel glad about was my failure to convince anyone from the conference to join me. They would've certainly been discouraged and disillusioned by now. I certainly was.

And then, there it was, all sparkly and new, this ultra-modern building full of contemporary art, craft, and design. It was warm inside. My boots clicked cleverly along the glossy parquet floors. The lighting was sublime, the art imaginative, the docents friendly. All was blissful indulgence in there. I was, once again, glad.

Funny how my feet stop hurting when I get to see great art. I am warmed from the inside as if full of hot soup and energized for the long walk back to the parking garage.

Along the way, as it happened, a 9-piece brass band in hoodies and baggy jeans had set up on the corner outside the Qdoba Grill. Only two of them were adults, the rest of the horn players in the 8-to-10-year-old range, with a 1st grader beating on a cowbell like he was calling us all in for supper. They played like it was Bourbon Street on Mardi Gras with 2 million revelers watching instead of Uptown Charlotte, me, and one dazed-looking homeless guy swaying and grinning as The Saints Go Marching In.

It gets harder, as I get older, to press on when things aren't comfortable and easy. But it never stops being worth it.