Monet Water Lilies

   This is one of my favorite pieces of artwork, but I have never been positive of why exactly. It is one of my mothers favorite paintings and has been around me since I was a child but I never really looked at it, just accepted it as a part of the furniture.
   I looked at it for the first time when I was fourteen. Me and my sister went to the MoMA with our father, she had been there before but it was my first time. It was one of the rare days when it is not crowded. We went around the museum, saw some interesting things like a wall that moved whenever the person next to it did, and not so interesting things like a whole gallery filled with different types of stains, but my sister was on a mission to find a painting by her favorite artist Salvador Dali.
   We asked around and it turned out they only had one painting on display by Dali at the moment on the eighth floor. She went off to look for it and my father followed her because she has a habit of wandering. I was following slightly but a bright corner of blue caught my eye. I went down to one of the back galleries that had barely anyone in it and thats were I saw Monet's Water Lilies for the first time.

   What I never knew about the painting is that it is huge, taking up a whole wall. The copies I had grown up with were never as beautiful, as captivating as it is in person. The size of it makes it seem like an actual lake. I felt like I was in the painting, in its almost dream like appearances, its serene colors, its slightly distorted brush work which makes it feel all too much as if it is a memory I had forgotten.
   I dont know how long I stood in front of it, but my father called me out of my rapture. They had found the Dali painting and were heading back downstairs. I went with them back downstairs, leaving the water lilies behind, but anytime I think of a piece of artwork, my mind first goes to that blissful realm, beside the lilies.