Motorcity Meets Mila | Sequence M-2025
Midday breaks to museums invoke new core memories too
Yesterday on New Year’s Eve, I got to take Mila to the Detroit Institute of Arts [DIA.] She’s my favorite artist, and I’m biased because this is the same Mila who is my Cosmic Polarity—which is my own peculiar way of saying my daughter. Mila reminds me that art is for imitating and staring intently at, things I know and forget so quickly. Mila posed like many of the people in the paintings, not caring who’s around or how close she gets to the wall! Every passer-by smiled, or even stopped to watch Mila impersonate the art and entertain the observant observers simultaneously.
I, on the other hand, became rigid in creativity, saying things like, “Watch out!” and “Don’t go near that!” when she approached the wall in her fluid, carefreeness. The security guards kept a close eye on her—not because they know what I know: that in the future, Mila’s art will most definitely be on the very walls she’s not allowed to touch, effectively touching them forever. Instead, their eyes are locked in on Mila because she’s by far, the most lively, animated animation present in the stillness and quietness of art galleries.
She’s the same Mila who, in Hello World!, said, “I call you Abba because I got to pick my Abba.” The same Mila who, when she was five, mirrored and reversed everything she wrote, especially the number 4, along with “d”s, “p”s, “b”s, “g”s, Hebrew ש [sh], and English “e”s. One pre-sunrise spring morning, she awoke and insisted we play Backgammon. Mila’s mind motors always wanted to continue whatever we did the previous day—a perpetual running of the bull that is her Taurus spiritual energy.
That morning, I paused my early morning writing and set up our game. I asked, “Mila, do you remember who sent you here?” Sitting directly opposite me, she looked up, and without skipping a beat said: “Doug.” Mila’s answer made my internal processor stop processing and made my tear ducts transform into the Belle Isle Fountain bursting into nonstop tears. “Doug” was such a funny answer that my response made Mila burst into tears too and start cracking up. Did Mila just answer “God” in reverse? My dyslexic mind “flips” numbers to this day, especially if I’m unfocused so I’ve just learned to focus the non-flip, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Mila’s mind did this with characters? My non-clinical conclusion always was that my mind flipped numbers because I learned Math (right to left) before learning English (left to right) and after having learned Hebrew (right to left.) On this, the House of Experts , and me, disagree. They say the order of RTL v LTR languages and brain development is not related to dyslexia and you’re either “born with it,” or you’re not.
Mila’s born with pizazz. Where most grown ups confidence in the presence of the greatest artists would humble us at the lack of maybe our own lack of talents, Mila is not intimidated and concludes the only thing that would make this impressionist oil on canvas more creative is her! At one point, she posed like Albert Joseph Moore’s Study for Birds and said something was off about the woman’s neck. “Yeah?” I asked. “Tell me why?” She replied, “I can’t do it like her!” “Oh, why not?” I inquired. Mila explained, “Her neck is stretched.” How observant! The artist indeed exaggerates the subject’s neck to emphasize beauty and harmony over realism, invoking elegance or otherworldliness—something Mila instantly noticed. Her small eyes see bigger.
It’s been years since I sat on a gallery bench because Mila insisted, so we sat! This was the opposite of our previous visit when she and Lev dashed into every gallery, prompting the security guards to remind my children and me that children can’t be unaccompanied at the DIA. They were never more than ten feet ahead of me, but it was the guards’ polite way of saying we were too loud and needed to refine our refinement. Yesterday’s New Year’s Eve visit was far more pleasant in contrast, and luckily for my micro mindscapeur; Mila only vaguely remembers our last visit, and the guards seemed to, not.
This time, she asked why so many paintings have naked women. “How come they’re dressed inappropriately?” she asked. I said, “Mila, can you please not date until after you’re forty?” Without missing a beat, she replied, “No, why?” Mila is a future CEO, executive-in-training, or the boss of her own Milaness, and I love her questions that land me at, “I don’t know.”
She asked why a wooden table with kitchen items is at the DIA. I said, “They’re designed by very creative people.” Mila pressed, “What’s so special about this table?” which aside its age being from the 1820s appeared to be mostly a rectangle on top of four legs. I read the placard, but it was more historical than satisfying her unsatisfiable curiosity. Again, I admitted, “I don’t know.” We did know one thing—seeing so much art, or maybe it was the kitchen table, makes us hungry. Mila wanted pizza, so we went to Sgt. Pepperoni’s in Midtown for my favorite pizza-by-the-slice in the City.
In the daytime, Sgt. Pepperoni’s was stinkier and dirtier than I remembered. Unstocked napkins and a parmesan shaker drought is sacrilege in the world of golden round dough with crust kissed by a brick oven, and sauce so saucey it could tell mozzarella stories for days that stretch all the way from Midtown to the Motown Museum, Madonna Mia! But the pizza was, and still is fantastic. I got veggie, Mila got cheese, and we both agreed: it’s yummy. We agree on many things, despite being cosmic opposites. She’s the perfect 180-degree rotation from the astrological predetermination of Scorpio wired within me, which might not even be within me anymore—maybe my wiring finally surrendered through life’s 2nd and 3rd crushing of a former previous self.
Later, I showed Mila a phone booth. “Look, people used to have to enter a booth to make a call.” Mila asked, “Did you make calls from a booth?” Laughing, I said, “Yeah, I did.” In my peak phone booth days, that’s how I called home from Bar and Bat Mitzvahs circa 1992 when we didn’t have a quarter and cellphones had not yet imprisoned young minds. Mila asked what making calls was like in black and white. I told her “I don’t know.” Because I haven’t yet made a black and white phone call! If my neurons are micro detonators in a mental minesweeper, Mila has a way of detonating all my mines. I’m pretty sure, she’s sure, the world before her birth was as ancient as Moses, complete with phone booths, papyrus, black and whiteness, and obviously, me because she’s aware of her colors, and she’s aware she came to be!
We hand-sanitized, ate, hydrated, and headed home. Yesterday was “Mila’s choice.” A day where we do whatever Mila wants. After half an afternoon at the DIA, Scorpios want to sit and read or cook our next meal, or take a nap! Tauruses do not. After seeing art, Mila wanted to draw! After viewing she wants to be doing! So we came home and did art—even better than looking. Mila did my hair and makeup, and I did hers. I cooked us dinner; Penne Rigate No.41, with sauce for me, with only butter and salt for Mila. We watched a movie, watched the Time Square ball drop, danced on the sofa and removed our makeup! When I stay in, I can easily go inward and stay quiet for hours; when Mila stays in[doors] with me, we break out into song, into dance, and into watermelon glow niacinamide dew drops serum. Never, could I have scripted such a great sequence, unless I were open to experience, my experience, not according to me, but according to the Grand Master Chess Player and Scribe of Life who speaks through inaudible silences in the hymnal hum of M, or sometimes very matter of straightforwardness through the Mila chamber orchestra conducted by Mila, the Grand Master Mover and Master Muse at experiencing life, so I never mind, driving any of her choices around and am grateful for Mila and Mila’s choice day.