I won't even go into the hands that painted this and what they must look like.

I never cry when it matters. A couple nights before my grandfather died (he'd had a stroke when I was four, this was inevitable), I cried. I don't remember what set me off but I do remember sitting outside the space at the end of the hall between my bedroom and the bathroom and being inconsolable. I think I was crying about him but that wasn't why I'd started crying. I cried when Walt and I broke up, but that was because of the election results. They weren't sad tears. I cried trying to explain Whitman to someone once. I was trying to get across what it felt like (and still feels like) to read the line "one hour to feel sufficient as I am" at 12 years old, in my brother's bedroom. The realization that someone had actually put to words (simple, perfect words) exactly what it was that I desperately wanted but had never (have never) felt. I'm more careful when I explain Whitman now. Not everyone sees why poetry might make you cry.

So it made sense that in the Art Institute, when I accidentally happened upon "The Old Guitarist" I caught a small pooling in the corner of my eye. It wasn't surprising, just a little unexpected. I envy what people can do with their hands. Writers like to talk about writing like it's a craft. Like you could sit at a computer and crank out a chair. But it isn't that. It's all cerebral what I do. You can't see it in calluses or arthritic knots and cricks. I have a small writer's bump on my left middle finger, but it's gone down some since I started typing everything. I barely ever get smudges on the side of my hand anymore. My father built every shelf and cabinet in our house. He curses and sweats and takes forever but when it's all done, he's done it. I watch musicians in the hopes that if I look hard enough, I finally get the trick to moving my fingers that quickly. There has to be a trick to it. They all have hands suited to the job. All calluses and knots and elongated fingers.

The guitarist is curled around his instrument, gaunt and half-dead looking but still playing as if that's what won't allow the other half to give up. Even though he's completely contorted, it's alarmingly natural compared to the other Picassos at the museum. That might be what made me cry. He's human. Irreparably so. He has musician's hands, thin and long. Like his toes...though I don't imagine anyone has musician's toes...

You don't expect this painting to be where it is. Around an unassuming corner. Maybe that's why it's there. I wasn't the only person who turned and stopped dead. I'm not sure anyone didn't do that. The guy next to me, who'd been in many of the same rooms with me as I traced the map of the galleries, stopped just behind me. We both just traipsed through Carvaggio. These huge, Biblical scenes--all opulent purples and purposeful awe. What struck me was how the real the painted robes looked folded over angels and disciples. I wasn't moved. You're supposed to be moved by Carvaggio. It's easy emotion.

But look at this and tell me you wouldn't cry to hear him play.