Rafael Blunt Walk

Now February is usually a mixed bag in New York, it could be an early spring leading into a very hot summer or it could be the icy hell that it was this year. Now between couch lock and being snowed in by a two-day snowstorm, I decided I had to brave the icy streets. My plan to defeat cabin fever was to visit the Museum of Modern Art because I heard they renovated some of the floors and even had some new exhibits. But before I braved the icy tundra that was NYC I had to prepare. Normally for a trip like this, I would smoke a blunt while walking around the block but due to the weather, smoking would freeze my face and hands with bone-chilling winds. That doesn’t mean I didn’t roll a couple anyway to give it a good college try. Knowing I couldn’t rely on just the blunts, I decided to hedge my bets with some edibles. Now I would not recommend this for the faint of heart because edibles are no joke and if you take them as such they will fuck up your day royally. I would only recommend taking 25 mg max for your first go but if you are like me, you can enjoy a velvety chocolate 400 mg brownie straight to the face, right before you leave your house. If my timing was right I had about an hour or so before the smacked train pulled into the station. So I ran downstairs and I was greeted with the most violent gust of wind like Mother Nature was rushing me back to my house. I was determined so I bundled up tighter and pushed towards the Train.

Once I arrived at the B train I realized that there was a 15-minute delay before the actual train got there. 15 minutes isn’t a long time for a regular person waiting on a train platform but for somebody that’s about to take off into space, it was a nightmare, It threw my edible timing completely off. By the time the train was rolling into the station, I could already feel my shoulders get looser as if I were swimming in a warm pool. I boarded the train and stood against the door to brace myself as the car swayed back and forth, music flooding in my ears accenting every bump and grind of the train on the rails. The high was just beginning--it was like the romance stage of the brownie and Raf relationship. I caught myself giggling at random shit on the train, people must’ve thought I was insane, but I had my mask on so I felt incognito (Truly I wasn’t though, I was stumbling over a bunch of shit thinking back on it now.). As I got off on 7th Avenue I was drifting back up to the horrid temperature waiting for me outside. With the edible fully kicking in, I could barely feel the cold anymore, so I took advantage. I grabbed a coffee from a lunch cart and gave the guy a generous tip cause he only had coins as change and in my state, I couldn’t deal with change. Then I sat on one of the benches across from the MoMa and lit one of the blunts. Usually, I wouldn’t be able to pull this off but my confidence was on 1000% and with the cold, security wasn’t going to take that L. I caught myself staring up in the sky, following plane trails, and admiring the mammoth skyscrapers that hugged the city around me. As a New Yorker sometimes you forget to look up because you’re so focused on what’s ahead but in these still moments you get to appreciate the scale of the city and step into the shoes of a tourist staring in awe of all the buildings. Though the city might look grimy and gritty the beauty of the city isn’t lost on me, not for a second. As I finish having these introspective thoughts I toss my blunt and coffee. I make my way across the street with nearly closed eyes as I come face to face with the MoMa. As I enter the lobby, I can feel the blood rushing back to my weed comatose face as security takes my temperature. When I pulled up, the ticket taker knew what kind of time I was on, he pretty much just waved me through.

Now I could write a 20-page paper on my experience at the Moma but my editor refused to give me all that space. So let me take you through my route of the museum, This time around the MOMA only had five floors of exhibits so I started at the top. As I exit the elevator, the halls led to a large gallery where I caught eyes with Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”. On a normal day it would be surrounded by people, but today I had it all to myself. I was lost in the colorful swirls and comforted by all the beautiful brushstrokes, It was like being welcomed by an old friend at a place you had forgotten. As a crowd started to form behind me I pressed on into a room full of turn-of-the-century art and mind blowing artists from all over the world. I would turn and I’d be staring at a Picasso with vibrant colors as if they were painted today, then I’d turn around again and I see Frida Kahlo fresh from cutting off her hair, which reminded me maybe I needed to do the same. I knew the brownie was kicking my ass when I caught myself sitting on a bench staring at a Monet for like 10 mins. I was overwhelmed, so I decided to head down to the next floor.

Once I got to 4, I could tell the difference immediately, the art was more colorful and playful. You could see less structure and more abstract work, like Jackson Pollock, where each one of his pieces is motion captured in its most rudimentary form. Each stroke, drizzle, line, and splatter flows into one another endlessly. I was lost in thought thinking about how he even started or where he ended. You also start to see the more modern art with Andy Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup Cans” which just got me hungry.

By this point, I had spent a lot of my time walking around, so I laid out on a bench to try and build up some stamina for this brownie, and during my rest, I heard the speakers say the MoMA is closing in 10 minutes in multiple languages. So I rushed down to 3, to at least get a glimpse at some Keith Haring work. As soon as I stepped onto the third floor exhibit, I was presented with a wall-to-wall Haring piece that took my breath away. It had men being abducted by spaceships, the classic dogs barking in a corner, and men being chased by snakes and crosses. Each character interlocking into another shape so perfectly, It looked like a puzzle and my mind was slowly scanning over it to put it together. I couldn’t get over the scale of it. Right as I’m picking my jaw up off the floor, I see security ushering everyone to the exit, but before they see me, I’m around the corner to soak up the last bit I can before I have to go. And of course I come face to face with another security guard and he definitely looked like he wanted to get off work, so I made my way to the exit feeling artistically satisfied and accomplished for the day. Then I exited the museum to the freezing cold reminder of why it was pretty much empty the whole day. I shuffled my way back uptown on the train, to my comfy cabin till the next time I was brave enough to go out and see my shadow, most likely for more dutches.

-Rafael Hernandez