Being a tourist in Massachusetts I - or a day at the Peabody Essex Museum

I admit – though it should come as no great surprise – that it has been a bit of a letdown since coming back from Ireland.  Not a bit.  Pretty huge actually.  I think that is inevitable with the culmination of anything you anticipate for nearly a year.  And while it definitely lived up to the hype, there are still two whole months of summer with nothing to get that excited about. 

Well, now it’s almost down to one.  But this weekend I resolved - before all of July was spent in listless waning - to put into practice some of what made Ireland so brilliant.

Briefly, it was celebrating the moment.  Living in the present and enjoying the sights, sounds, and culture of my location.  I wasn’t really in a place that was extraordinary in a way my home is not.  Just that it isn’t my home and thus not my ordinary.  But the fact is, I live in a pretty remarkable part of the world, with lots of interesting sites to see and stories to go with them.  I know that.  I’ve made a career out of it.  Indeed, I know it so well I’ve been keeping a list of all those places to check out.  A list that gets progressively longer with each bit of research I do about how other museums do things.  A list I have managed to pretty much ignore (minus a few visits) for the last several years.

I had some plans fall apart for this Sunday evening, so I took it as a sign to get out of the house, out of town, and start working on that list.  I am aware of the time this takes away from my writing, so I have a rule that it has to connect back to my stories somehow.  But that isn’t too difficult because my characters leap throughout New England (not just Irish) history.

I’ve decided to suck the marrow out of these excursions even more by writing a blog – as I wrote a blog about my Irish adventures.  I hope you, dear readers, will come along with me.  And maybe (in honest hope for the solidarity of museums and their need for your admission and gift shop dollars) you will be inspired to go visit as well.  To frame my mind and my posts, I’ve decided to follow my rule about going to theater.  I have to find three things that I like.  And to test the rule that I was taught in museum education, tell you three things I learned.

So now that I’ve given you the preamble, let me tell you about my day in Salem.

Throughout the week, local papers and friends posted the fact a new memorial was unveiled at the location where, in 1692, several ‘witches’were hanged.  1692 is one of the years written on my wall as a future landing point for my characters (there’s the connection to my writing).  It’s also a story I know well from American Lit classes and multiple community theater productions of The Crucible.  Indeed, the memorial is at a location called Proctor’s Ledge.  But I’ll come back to that later.

Anyway, I had it in my head to go see it.  But to drive the 90 some minutes up to Salem to look at rocks needed a little more justification.  Earlier in the week, one of my colleagues told me she visited the Peabody Essex Museum to see their current exhibit Ocean Liners and liked it very much.  I have been checking out PEM throughout the year because I admire their membership and events model and resolved I would eventually get myself there to become a member and see it in person.  That positive endorsement from another museum person, my recent yearning for more Transatlantic travel, and the mastery of their coy marketing (hardly any images of the exhibit available on their website or Facebook) made the determination to go there an easy one.

It was the perfect day for a drive to Salem.  The humidity cleared out, but still warm enough to put on my sunglasses, get an iced coffee, roll down the windows and let the wind tousle my newly short hair as I drove on the highway listening to my mix of tunes.  Stevie Wonder.  U2.  Hamilton.  Led Zeppelin.  Game of Thrones.  A random assortment of 80’s pop tunes. 

What did I learn?

I will focus on the Ocean Liner exhibit, because that is where I spent most of my time.

1. The telegraph machine that was used on the Titanic was Marconi.  This is obviously resonant with me because Marconi was the goddam bloody useless radio that wasn’t called Lugh in Dancing at Lughnasa.  Yeah, unless you were in the play it probably doesn’t matter.  Still, I like when dots connect in my life.

Titanic was not surprisingly featured a few times throughout the rooms.  It is the most infamous ocean liner that almost everyone knows about.  I’ve been drawn to the story since I was ten and they found the wreckage on the ocean floor.  But there was a piece of paneling from the first class lounge on display. 

It was on loan from a museum in Newfoundland, so I wonder if it washed up with the bodies.  It was still so beautiful, so intricately carved.  Something in which I could still lose myself for a few moments contemplating the craftmanship and detail. I could see myself sitting in the lounge and tuning out the tedium of small talk that would bore me were I privileged enough to sit in a first class lounge.  But I also found myself thinking of the craftsmen, who were from Belfast.  A city that takes a lot of pride in Titanic – because in spite of the obvious tragedy, it was an amazing ship.  The details of this panel prove that.  The artistry.  The time.  The fact the ship was built before Ireland tore itself apart in the 20^th century.  Kind of fascinating to contemplate.

2. This reflection is shorter.  There was a little corner about religious worship on the ships.  They actually had synagogues on the ships – located on the same level as third class.  But it was noted that these spaces became more likely on vessels in the 1930s as more Jews crossed the Atlantic to escape… well we know.

3. The disparity between the extremely wealthy and the poor is nothing new.  Well, I didn’t really learn this.  It was just on full display.  I found the exhibit stunning and exquisite.  But it was an experience only a few of a privileged set could experience.  To cross the Atlantic at leisure, not to flee the extremity of poverty or oppression and have to give up a home and connection to family.  The exhibit honored that with a few images, but it is heartbreaking to consider.  Maybe (no definitely) because I consider how lucky I am to visit Ireland as I wish when I know so many had to leave and never look back.

What did I like?

1. There was a live pianist in the gallery.  I thought it was recorded until I turned a corner and there was a young man at a piano that was part of the exhibit.  It added great atmosphere and a touch of realism, but wasn’t invasive of my concentration.  Nicely done, PEM.

2. At the end of the exhibit, there was a label giving credit to all the staff who made it possible – with their picture.  And it included everyone from curatorial to marketing to development to education.  A nod to the behind the scenes, that I really appreciated as one of their kin.  But hopefully, it puts a face to the work that you all can see.

3. I had a delicious quinoa salad in the café.

I ended up buying my membership so I will be back.  There is a Georgia O’Keefe exhibit starting at the end of the year and I didn’t spend a huge amount of time in all the permanent collection.  So it is definitely worth a return visit.

I took a little walk before returning to my car, trying to remember the last time I walked through Salem.  A long time.   And I don’t remember when I last was in that part of Salem.  It wasn’t Halloween craziness, but there were people and activity.  I wandered down to the Salem History Museum and paid the $3 to walk through the room of displays.  I won’t give you the list of what I learned  - a lot of complements to what is already stored in my head.  But I was fascinated by this mannequin of a redcoat uniform.  I suspect it was a recreation, but it could be relevant to a scene or two about where there are buttons.

Then I got back in the car and made my way to the memorial.  I indulged the use of Google Maps, but it was flawed, leading me to a playground at Gallows Hill.  What I didn’t realize was it was a one way street parallel to another one way street where the names are etched.  I was making an attempt to turn myself around and ended up finding it.

I got out and took pictures.  It’s still quite new.  The stones and etchings haven’t born the wear of a winter yet.  But the names were familiar from the play and other readings on the witch trials.  It was strange to think that was the very spot they all drew their last breath.  That the residential neighborhood, with the backside of a Walgreens in obvious view was the location of such an unhappy point of American history.  I wanted to take a longer pause and breathe it in, but I could hear the residents in the condo across the street making dinner or something and it felt… maybe goodly weird.  Because people live there.  Maybe the space has forgiven the tragedy of 400 some years ago.

Then I got back in the car, rolled down the windows, turned on the music and headed home.