Of galaxies, butterflies, dinosaurs and being a child

A recollection of my visit to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and rediscovering the inner child in me.

I still remember how excited I was as a primary school student, being told by the teacher that the class will be going on a field trip to ‘Taman Mini Indonesia Indah’ or TMII for short (literally translates to Beautiful Indonesia Miniature Park).  TMII is a sort of theme park but geared mostly towards education. So instead of rides that try their best to part you with your recently ingested lunch, TMII contains replicas of the various traditional houses from the different indigenous cultures in Indonesia and also many museums about anything and everything under the sun. From a museum dedicated to freshwater aquatic creatures to a museum dedicated to stamps.  TMII was always my favorite field trip destination as I loved going to the museums and seeing all the different displays and live animals they have there. Two of my favorites were the Freshwater Fish Museum and the Insect Museum. The Freshwater Fish museum was more of an aquarium than a museum, with a huge repository of freshwater fish from all over the world. We used be very giddy with excitement every time we got there, running around and gawking at the various displays, ponds and aquariums scattered throughout the building. The Insect museum located just beside the Freshwater Fish Museum had brilliant displays of various insects both dead and alive from all over the world and a gorgeous butterfly enclosure open all year round.

It was that feeling of giddy excitement that I just recently discovered in my first visit to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In the beginning, I almost didn’t visit the museum out of sheer laziness. But seeing that my firm has a corporate membership and that it was the last major museum in the city I have yet to tick off my list, I hauled my ass up to 81st Street on a sunny Monday afternoon to visit the museum.

Right after getting off the subway I could already hear the shouts and laughter of excited children. It was Presidents’ Day and clearly most families had the same idea of making the most out of the extra day off by spending the day in the museum. Stepping through the doors, I saw how lively and crowded it was. I couldn’t help but smile and notice the children around, dragging their parents by their sleeves shouting questions such as “When are we going to see the dinosaurs?”

The Hayden Planetarium at the museum was doing a show every half hour and since it’s been decades since I have seen anything at a planetarium I decided to give it a go and purchased tickets for the show and for additional access to the butterfly enclosure they currently have on.

After getting my tickets, I wondered around the first floor to see if I could discover something interesting to look at whilst waiting for the show to start. As I passed through a huge hall covered with carvings from Native Indian American Tribes, I could feel it starting to creep out on me again. That giddy and childlike excitement of discovering things you have not seen before or finding out something exciting about the world. Passing though that hall and a screaming group of kids, I took a map and plotted my way to check out their Hall of Oceanic Life. Before I got to the hall, I passed through a beautiful display on the walls of the museum celebrating the biodiversity of the world. I spotted a replica of the famous flower Raflesia Arnoldi, native only to Indonesia. That giddy and excited feeling just got a tad bit stronger then.

Stepping into the hall of oceanic life and seeing the humongous replica of a blue whale suspended from the ceiling and floating in the center of the massive room, it was no longer the 26 year old me that was standing there gawking and taking pictures. Rather, it was me as a 10 year old boy, in my standard black sneakers for school, white socks, checked red shorts and white shirt, trembling with wide-eyed awe and thrill. My heart fluttering with the thrill of giddy excitement of being there and of the inexhaustible wonders I might encounter in the museum.

After going around the hall, mostly just to admire the wonderful displays, I realized it was time for the show at the planetarium and I hurriedly made my way back to the planetarium.  I used to be in Astronomy club for the longest time when I was in primary school. There was just something about space that really draws me to it. The vastness and beauty of it all seem so endless. I lapped up any documentary about space I could find and wrote notes reminding myself of the schedules for the Discovery and National Geographic Channels, to make sure that I would be able to catch the space themed documentaries. My father also had a simple telescope and I would beg him to set it up on clear nights when the moon is out just so that I could catch a glimpse of some of the craters and vast ‘oceans’ visible through that little peephole in the telescope.

After finding my seat and the customary explanations by the staff, I waited for the lights to go dark. When the show started, looking up as the dome went black and we fell into the galaxies it was really hard not to feel goosebumps running through my entire body. As they whisked around the infinite vastness of space I found myself rediscovering that love that I had for the wonders of space and the feelings that had me besotted by the school’s astronomy club for years. As the show ended and the screen faded into darkness the room broke out into applause. I didn’t think anyone was left without a smile as we filed out in an orderly fashion out of the planetarium.

The next item on my list was the Butterfly Enclosure. From the outside the enclosure looked kind of small and extremely crowded, but I did manage to glimpse a huge number of butterflies fluttering around the wide-eyed visitors. Once the metal doors to the enclosure were opened to let a group of us in, the first thing that hit our faces was the wet and humid air from inside the enclosure. It was then immediately followed by the sound of chatter and squeals of delight coming from children and adults alike as butterflies landed on them or on an item of their clothing. Even with the small size and crowd, it was still very magical inside the enclosure with hundreds of butterflies in every shade of brilliant colours imaginable fluttering around. I couldn’t help but to think back of those times I was in the Insect Museum at TMII admiring the various butterfly specimens and spending so much time gawking and chasing over butterflies at the enclosure.

It was wonderful inside the enclosure with everyone snapping pictures of the butterflies or stretching out their hands with the hope that a butterfly will land upon their hands. An elderly woman who works at the museum was holding a piece of orange with 4 big butterflies on her arm, smiling and giving explanations to both kids and adults who looked bewildered. At one point she came to me whilst I was observing some butterflies inside a net and pointed me to an Atlas Moth who was laying her eggs in the net. She then went on to explain that the moth came from Southeast Asia to which I responded that I have had the moths come into my house in Indonesia a number of times as a kid. I remembered we were told that the moth is a sign that signals the arrival of an important guest or a loved one soon in the future. I spent a good 20 minutes going around the small enclosure taking pictures and just generally smiling at the antics of the visitors every time they cheer in excitement when a butterfly landed upon them. I was quite an experience being amongst butterflies at the end of the winter in New York City.

From the enclosure I looked at my map and plotted my way up to the fourth floor of the museum to visit the famous Hall of the Dinosaurs and Ancient Mammals. Every time I go to a dinosaur exhibition, the theme song for Jurassic Park never fails to play itself in a loop in my head. “pam Pam, pam Pam, pada Pam Padadadam…” No matter how hard I try, the soaring trumpets, strings and woodwinds would always be heard in mind; so clear that sometimes it almost felt like I actually heard it at that moment. Stumbling upon the sight of a T-Rex skeleton was enough to get me excited, but it was the memories that they brought back that made me even happier. Coming across a fossil of a Plesiosaurus, I remembered how as a kid I dubbed Plesiosaurus as my favorite dinosaur ever, because I liked the fact that it has fins and lived in the prehistoric waters as one of the mightiest predators in the oceans. Coming at a close second was the Stegosaurus, which I loved due to the shield plates on its back and the barbed end of its tail.

A visit around the other halls containing skeletons of Mammoths and other Prehistoric Mammals brought more wonders. It was there that I realized not all adults are there with their kids of families. As I was admiring the skeleton of a Wooly Mammoth, a group of three men probably in their early thirties, came up to me and asked if I could help them take a picture in front of the skeleton. I said yes and helped them snapped a couple of pictures. The checked them out and after declaring their satisfaction thanked me and I overheard one of them saying “Let’s go to the T-Rex hall as I have not seen that one!” Little vignettes like this one and others like stumbling upon an old man falling asleep in the Africa section with his grandson running around admiring the elephant models, were what really made my day in the museum.

Glancing at my phone, I was surprised to find that I have already spent almost 3 hours at the museum. By that point I felt that I have explored what I wanted to see in the museum and decided to make my way out. Before this experience, I think I have forgotten how much I loved going to natural history museums. The last time I have been to the London one was probably more than a year ago as these days I have tended to frequent art museums more than natural history museums. I shudder to think that I almost did not visit the American Museum of Natural History out of that sentiment. But standing there on the steps, enjoying the cool air of the late winter afternoon in New York City, I felt very lucky that I managed to experience the museum. I had a wonderful time not only enjoying the shows and exhibits, but above all, rediscovering that inner child in me that I thought I have lost touch with as I grew older.

Standing on the steps, out of the corner of my eye I saw a 5 year old boy, dressed in a navy puffy coat, slowly descending the steps between his parents, with a soft toy of a T-rex clutched underneath his arms. He was evidently tired and sleepy from his walk, but his eyes betrayed none of that fatigue. He was still talking rapidly about the animals and dinosaurs with that wide-eyed wonder; and at that very moment, that child was I.