It was early October, the heavy blanket of heat and humidity that plagues Atlanta’s summer was slowly lifting, bringing in cooling Atlantic winds. I felt on top of the world I had created for myself. I sipped coffee and directed foot traffic. The entirety of Peachtree was closed to insure the safe transport of ”Le Tibre,” a giant Grecian sculpture first discovered in 1512. The sculpture was hidden in a giant white truck with police escorts. Media was everywhere, trying to catch a glimpse before the unveiling. I felt like I was waiting at the gates to great the president, or the pope. People bustled around, talking in code on walkie talkies. I just stood their in awe at the moment. I never crossed the Mississippi river but once, and today I didn’t have to travel at all, The Louvre was coming to me.
Behind me stood a clean white building designed by Renso Piano. The building itself was sculpture. Inside paintings and antiques were being carefully arranged in preparation for our upcoming opening. I almost felt guilty-disrespectful, leaning on the pavilion. I wore a black cardigan with The High embroidered on it in red. My security clearance badge clicked and clacked against the building.
Men bigger than houses hoisted up the wooded box labeled ’fragiles’. With careful crowbars the men stripped the boxes of nails leaving the ply wood to fall to the canvass protected marble floor with a thud. And there it was. Le Tibre. Moved only twice since its discovery almost 500 years prior, history is starring at me, like it has nobody else in the United States. I had never felt so small and so big all at once.
I remember every breath of that morning. It was the day my dreams came true.
