Another one in the series of son-in-law and mother-in-law days out. This afternoon starts with Jutta and I having lunch in the courtyard of the Heard Museum on a beautiful winter day.

We tried glomming onto a docent-led tour but understanding this person’s English from a distance proved difficult for native German speaker Jutta so we broke off allowing my mother-in-law to read placards at her own pace.

No matter that we’ve been here before, since both of us have sketchy memories, many of the pieces in the museum are being seen for the first time, so to speak.

And even if we’d remember precisely what we’d seen before, these artifacts from the indigenous people of the Southwest are worth experiencing again and again as reminders of their unique skills and way of seeing the world.

I love the idea that prior to the arrival of my ancestors the people of this continent had a vision of nature and their place in it that was so very different than that of the Europeans; it’s a constant thorn in reality that so much of a culture was destroyed for the sake of hegemonistic rule.

Not made of cold marble and stone but of warm wood and similar tones, looking into the souls of how indigenous people saw themselves and their gods should be a treasure and while celebrated here at the Heard, not every state in America has a museum dedicated to recognizing those who came before.

Here I’m reminded of the 30,000-year-old clay sculptures found in the Czech Republic, Dogū sculptures from Japan, and the 5,000-year-old Valdivia Figurines from South America. It appears that people from around the globe shared a common need to see their likeness as a work of reverence and art. With this, we conclude another mother-in-law and son-in-law day out.