I went to Boston by myself last weekend for a family gathering, and on the way there, I felt as if I was on some kind of magical trek. The sun was shining, the flight was on time and we didn’t crash. What could be better? I wanted my first day there to include things on my bucket list, and so I planned the day in the image of my happiness: seafood, art, and history.

First, I took a cab to my favorite restaurant near Faneuil Hall–a very old and historic place. And then I took a cab to the Boston Museum Of Fine Arts and stood in the grand lobby twirling like Mary Tyler Moore.

The great thing about the museum is the multi-layered expression of history–everything from early American furniture to European paintings by Monet and Renoir, to Peruvian textiles and Egyptian mummies. It isn’t just a museum–it’s a time capsule, housing some of the best artistic expressions of mankind through millennia.

Museums are a reminder that all is not lost. They welcome a steady stream of visitors that gives us data proving that people still seek connection, wonder, and meaning.

I once led a small group of gifted kids to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. There was a hitch: to get there, we had to walk from one side of Central Park to the other–a surprisingly long walk for kids who hadn’t spent much time outdoors. They made me stop every ten yards so they could rest, utterly unaccustomed to the effort. At that rate, it was going to take us all day to get to the museum. So, being the true Boomer that I am, I gently chided them for their inability–or was it refusal?–to take a walk through such an iconic and beautiful place as Central Park.

“But you’re used to walking,” they whined, sprawled dramatically on the grass like tragic figures from a Russian novel. “We’re not.”

They described lives centered entirely around their superior intelligence–lives lived behind desks, in classrooms, in front of screens. Lives, I imagined, designed by well-meaning adults who had packed their days with academic rigor but left no room for balance, for breath, for being outside.

They all admitted they rarely spent time outdoors. And long walks? That was a foreign concept.

Little did they know, I wasn’t in any shape for a long walk either. The night before, I had met up with my brother and niece in Midtown Manhattan. By pure coincidence, we’d all been in the city at the same time. One drink turned into several, and we ended the night in a hotel bar in Times Square–laughing, talking, getting carried away.

The next morning–the morning of the Great Central Park Trek–I woke up feeling like I might die. The idea of leading a field trip with genius-level children, all forced into yet another round of self-enrichment, felt like cruel and unusual punishment.

But we plodded along together, wounded soldiers all, slowly reaching the other side of the park. And then, finally, we passed through the museum’s grand doors.

Everything changed the moment we left the sunlight behind and stepped into the dim and dusty hush of the Met.

You don’t just walk through the Met; you drift through centuries. Egyptian priests stood frozen in sandstone beside European oil paintings thick with brushstrokes. It’s the only place I know where you can turn a corner and come face-to-face with a medieval knight, or a Grecian urn whispering across millennia.

We didn’t follow a checklist that morning. I let the kids wander. I let them choose. I let their instincts–not our itinerary–guide them.

And something beautiful happened. The whining stopped. Their eyes widened. Their minds caught up with their bodies. It was as if they were finally allowed to break free from a short lifetime of rote learning and adult-imposed expectations. They seemed to expand in that space–as if they had passed through a sacred portal.

And I, their hungover and slightly unorthodox tour guide, gave them free reign. Not just because I was in no mood to lecture–but because I sensed that what the museum offered them was far more important than anything I could say.

Haven’t visited a museum lately? Head to Buffalo. See the newly remodeled and expanded AKG Art Museum, or the interesting and grand history museum, or science museum. Get lost for a day in the past or the future.

It was my father who dragged his kids whining and crying to area museums, and now, I’m glad he did. I probably wouldn’t have adopted museums as a lovely and enriching pastime.