A small slice, please

So we go into this tiny pizza place yesterday and order a slice because I'm starving. And this midget (little person) walks in and D's eyes just about pop out of his head he's staring so hard, and he says (loudly and pointing), "Little man!" "Yes, yes," I whisper. But he hasn't made his point yet, or perhaps I haven't fully understood, so he says again, louder now, and pointing emphatically, "little man, little man!!" He stops eating his pizza and stares open-mouthed. Then he looked at me again and then back to the patient man waiting for his pizza, "little man, mummy, little man!" Did I mention the size of the pizza joint, that it was smaller than most suburban bathrooms. I smiled apologetically at the man. Then a gangly teen walked in. "BIG MAN!" D yelled joyfully, almost hysterical at the variety of sizes people come in. Let me tell you friends, I don't think I have ever eaten a slice of pizza so fast as I did yesterday.

Saturday afternoon

A sunny and windy afternoon. My hands are cold and I crave tea. The wind whips the clothes on the line, shirts upside down, snapping like flags, long live the country of argyle.

Cold hands and painting, an association with deep grooves in my mind. I have never painted with warm hands. I have never painted without feeling an inner shiver. Even when I have painted in the summer or the tropics, my body cools, concentrating blood in my mind and leaving my limbs goose pimpled.

What comes first, the cold hands or the desire to paint? Today, I think it was the cold, keeping me inside on this bright spring day when I would rather be in the garden.

I recently read Alain de Botton's "The Art of Travel" (2002), a philosophical treatise on travel in the post-modern world. The penultimate chapter was about drawing or sketching while travelling and the importance this can have in our perception of our journey. De Botton uses the artist and art teacher John Ruskin to illustrate the influence that drawing can have on how we see the world around us. I still remember the square in Venice where I spent an afternoon trying to capture the light and shades of decay on a row of buildings. I remember the feel of the stones beneath my feet, the grit and the light as I tried to draw statues on the Cathedral in Santiago de Compestello. I remember these moments much clearer than much of the surrounding journeys. Making art doesn't have to be something done only on a journey, the point is that in slowing down, in taking the time really look, whether inward or outward, I am more present when I make art. I remember spending hour upon hour last winter (again cold) making an alphabet book for a little friend. I remember that kitchen, the radio playing "Key of Charles", the joy of making a perfect aubergine with purple, black and blue pencil crayons.

Today, I painted a picture of my son and I and for the first time in as long as I can remember, when I finished it, I took a nail and a hammer and I hung it on the wall. I am trying very hard not to be stuck on results (it is not a very good painting) but on the process of creating and what that painting now is in my memory: a bright Saturday afternoon in April. All the clean clothes soon to be brought in from the line. MIA playing on the stereo. The simple joy of being alive. Cold hands.

The colour of the afternoon

A grey afternoon of imposed quietness. My son has a fever and sleeps and sleeps through the day. I read and look out at the tree branches, the brown grass turning green, the cars and pedestrians. A minivan stops at the corner, a Sikh man descends and strides down the street. Light blue shirt, grey pants and long white beard, turban like a maraschino cherry, bright bright, eye-catching red.

I once asked a Sikh friend about the meaning of the different coloured turbans one can see in the neighbourhood. Sometime I come across groups of men all in sherbert orange turbans, or serious men in black ones to match their beards; mauve, green, blue, yellow, beautiful colours swirling, dancing down the street. What does it all mean, I wanted to know. Some sort of affiliation? A political gesture?

She waved her hand, dismissing my question. "It's fashion," she told me.