The Things I See When I Walk My Dog (2)

I must admit, I don't walk my dog as much these days. He's not getting exercised any less, it's just that my wonderful girlfriend shoulders that burden now. So Odin's morning walks come later now, just after or just before the sun is up (the days are shorter now as winter is, finally, arriving), and he spends less time alone during the days. This change has been good for him, and I find time to sleep now. 5am mornings are not exactly sleeping in, but every hour closer to 7 that I manage I consider a good night. Theoretically these mornings, of better rest and fewer responsibilities are productive, pre-dawn times during which I catch up on the latest world news and get twitter postings scheduled for the day (work related, not my own). Instead I find the tasks that greet me every morning growing in size and importance and the time I spend on them decreasing (maybe if I completed something I could spend more time blogging!).I have settled into this routine well.

Events, as they always do, shattered (if only momentarily) my habits. For five days, roughly a week ago, that wonderful girlfriend of mine abandoned me (well, not really) to work in her home town for a week. So I was thrust back into the world of early morning walks and p90x infomercials.
Fewer homeless slept in Logan square or along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, I imagine the colder weather has them seeking shelter, and many of the leaves had turned. I could only see them on the ground, within the fringes of a street lamp's glow. There were fewer dedicated runners caught up in morning workouts and car headlights had begun to seem menacing in the crisp darkness, not the tired-eyed stragglers wandering into dawn that they had been during the summer months. What had changed most though, was the Barnes Museum

For those of you unaware, the issue of the Barnes Foundation was one of high art world controversy during the middle of the past decade. The issues are a bit complicated (but well documented in the entertaining, albeit very, very biased documentary Art of the Steal) but the basics are as such - Albert Barnes amassed over his lifetime a collection of art worth an estimated 25 billions dollars replete with paintings by Matisse, Cezzane, Van Gogh, Picasso, and more. After disputes and a few negative run-ins with the local art establishment he determined, in his will, that the art was never to be removed from his house (He had arranged the pieces, along with sculptures and hardware, for the purposes of education and beauty, in an entirely singular manner), and that the collection and foundation were to remain primarily a tool for education - Long, long, story short is that his will was, essentially, ripped and burnt, and the collection is to be moved within the year to a brand new building down the street from Rocky's famous steps outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art. When I walk my dog I always walk around the Barnes Museum, the future location of Albert Barnes collection. The museum is a few blocks away from the front door of my building, past the Franklin Institute, across the street on one side from a Starbucks and a GNC, on another by a Whole Foods and Philadelphia Sports Club. Just a few months ago, during the sweltering summer, the Barnes museum was a concrete foundation, if that. It was a hole in the ground that looked like nothing, and like it might stay that way. It was rebar and un-poured concrete behind a fence littered with wrinkled, tinny, potato chip bags and styrofoam coffee cups (right across from the Wholefoods, yeah).
I first noticed the changes somewhat superficially, on the drive home from work. They did not strike me until Odin lifted his leg on the fence surrounding them. The Barnes Museum has grown a facade. Plates of stone now cover much of the steel structure that grew like a beanstalk from august till now and give the whole place the look of the Franklin Institute, or Rodin Museum next door. What was once a skeleton is now real.

For grades 8-12 I attended a swanky, overly expensive (but good), school on the property next to the Barnes Foundation. The school has since moved to a further Philadelphia suburb, the Barnes is moving downtown.
As a child my best friends house backed up onto a giant field. It was an estate, one that might have been a farm sometime, but was just a great square of green surrounded by northeastern forest when I knew it. The man who owned it willed that, for one hundred years after his death, the estate would never be developed. He was alive when I was born. By my fifteenth birthday his property was littered with million-dollar houses of questionable quality, all born from the same mold.

Humanity evolves, and it does so quickly. I don't know, maybe evolve is the wrong word, for better or worse though humans change things. My dog, he will always need that morning walk.