Saint Pete, amid the waters of art.

My husband invited me to come along on his business trip to Tampa. Our first morning there, as we enjoyed a healthy, refreshing breakfast, he asked the waiter for the newspaper. I was browsing through a brochure. I had at least 8 hours for myself.
As the waiter handed the newspaper to my husband and he opened it up, something caught my eye. On the back page of the newspaper, looking straight at me was this big display with red and yellow surreal letters that read “Dali’s Museum”. A museum dedicated to Salvador Dali in the United States that was a first. I grabbed the paper away from my husband and I said, please let me see that. He was like what? But he let go of it. I was chewing and swallowing as fast as I could, reading the ad to my husband out loud at the same time, and trying to find out the when and where of the exhibition.
It turned out the museum was located in a near by city to the west called Saint Petersburg, 30 minutes away. My husband started nagging me with his, “it’s pouring out there”, “why can you just stay here”, etc.
My mind was made up I was going. I rented a car and waved my husband goodbye.
Crossing over the Tampa Bay was an experience of its own, the thunder echoed inside the car as if it was going to crack it open. The wipers went left, right, left, right in a crazy, fast pace that wasn’t able to whoosh the rain on the windshield away. The waves were gray with a purple crest and crushed into the concrete and metal bridge as if challenging its sturdiness.
The museum’s parking lot was full, a guy inside a transparent, plastic poncho was shooing everyone away. Tour buses were lined up blocking the entrance. An empty parking space appeared from nowhere, it said, “friends of the museum only”. I was definitely a friend. I parked there.
The edifice that held the museum was made out of cut in half crystal bubbles, encrusted into an aluminum structure. Inside, a Dali cardboard figurine was standing by the spiral stairway that loosely hanged from mid air, as welcoming me.
Melting clocks and watches rested over the sand. A wire, bursting, orange giraffe looked up. White and black piano keyboards detached from their bodies kept quiet. An unpleasant creature, in a desperate attempt to break the eggshell that imprisoned it, took me by surprise. All of them, overviewing the ocean shore and the palm trees that seemed to wave goodbye. I experienced through art the disintegration of the persistence of memory and the irrelevance of time…