She laid there in the nude while I stood there, watching. Her elbow rested on her pillow, her hand on her hip, her blonde, curly hair flowing. Her eyebrows were pencil thin but perfect. She was angelic. Absolutely angelic.

I thought to put my hands on her face. I felt her skin in the palms of my hands. She was soft. So incredibly soft. Her stare pierced my eyes. I couldn't keep myself from her fix.

I knew her instantly, as if she existed only for me to notice. But someone else had noticed her too. He noticed her long and hard enough to paint her, to place her on canvas, to introduce her to a world she never saw, for all of us to know, for me to know, forever. Somehow, in someway, I know something now that I never knew before. We both became more alive that day.

I'd run away with her forever.

A group of Russian tourists stood to admire the painting right as I was bringing myself to walk away. They didn't know I could understand them. I wanted to say hello, to connect myself to them in someway. But something stopped me and I kept walking and met with the familiarity of my friends, my English speaking friends, and went on with the day as if nothing had happened even though a lot had. In those few moments, I was introduced to a woman I would have never met had I not stopped to look at her. I was introduced to a world I was never able to know. I was somewhere else completely when I was in front of her. And then, instantly, I was brought back to the present, my present, the present that showed me how lucky I am to be alive now, to understand a language that most people in that building didn't, and to remind me that sometimes the best feelings you can have come from the moments you share only with yourself. I would have cried from the overwhelming emotion, but I was just too damn at peace with the crowds, the museum employees grabbing peoples' cameras, the rain outside, the distance from everything I love, and myself to let out anything else but the loudest sounds of nothing.

I'll never experience that moment again, not even now as I'm writing it. But I'd like to think I'll never forget it.

Art. It's everything unexplainable.

Venus of Urbino, 1538 Oil on Canvas "Sacred Love" The Uffizi, Firenze, Italia