The Art of Waiting - 2

My mum has just gone into the surgery, so I have all the time in the world to gaze at the reflection of the window in the framed print of the hollyhocks.

Why do I like it so much? I'll tell you. Everything framed within the window is of pleasing and regular proportions. There is, at the bottom, a section of metal grid, formed in regular squares. Above it, the triangular curve of a sailcloth over the path outside. Behind the sailcloth are several branches, bare except for four leaves outlined against the clear blue sky. Higher still, four electrical wires are strung musically from left to right, and a fat little Dusky Seaside Sparrow sits on the topmost one.

In addition, there is a paper sticker in the lower left corner of the window, and the sticker says NO CASH. The sticker is on the outside of the window, to deter potential thieves, as if the metal grid would not be enough. If I were looking directly at the window, the letters of the words NO CASH would be reversed. But because I am looking at a reflection of the window in the glass, the letters are reversed twice, and so NO CASH appears the right way round.

At first I do not realise this is interesting. But suddenly I realise that it is, because it is an example of that branch of science known as optics.

I've been sketching this, remember? I haven't even drawn the wires and sparrow when my mum appears. That was quick, she says. I didn't even need to have any stitches.

Momentarily, I wish that it had taken longer.

Dusky Seaside Sparrow

Mum is still waiting. I am on my second National Geographic. Surely she'll be going in soon.

In the National Geographic is a story about the Dusky Seaside Sparrow, which became extinct in 1986. Poor Dusky Seaside Sparrows. They used to live on Merritt Island, Florida. They became extinct due to 'improvements'. You have to laugh. No, you don't. Their homes were flooded in an attempt to get rid of mosquitoes.

The last six Dusky Seaside Sparrows were sent to Disneyland. Now you have to laugh. But no, you don't. They were all males. After several years only one was left. His name was Orange Band. He was old for a sparrow and blind in one eye. There was a photo of him all stiff and manky at the top of the story. When he died a small voice made its way into the universe. I am zero, it said. So you see, no one has a right to laugh.

At last someone comes in to get my mum. Hoorah! Now there is no one sitting opposite me under the hollyhocks. I need a break from reading and looking at photos, so I have a good look at the print. I can only partly see the hollyhocks because the glass reflects the window behind my head, and the window is brighter than the hollyhocks behind the glass. I look at the reflection of the window.

Soon I'm so intrigued with this reflection that I take notepaper and a pen out of my handbag, and begin to draw......,

Barbie Soccer Coach

I have been looking forward to reading this. I had hoped that mum would have gone in by now, though. She is sitting opposite me under a framed print of hollyhocks, reading a magazine.

Barbie Soccer Coach is a Little Golden Book, published in 1995. On page one, Barbie is finishing a photo shoot. She looks gorgeous in a big white wedding dress. Off-puttingly, the photographer is named Skovoola. He may be meant to be Swedish. He is blond, blue-eyed and looks quite hot.

Barbie goes off to coach her little sister Skipper's soccer team. She wears cute little red shorts and long white socks. She tells her team, the Tigers, if they win tomorrow she will take them to the beach.

To cut a short story even shorter, they do not win. This is because the other team cheats. One of Barbie's team cheats back and is sent off. Because of this, the Tigers lose. She learns a lesson, and says sorry. Barbie is pleased that everyone has learned the lesson. Now we are all winners, says Barbie, and tomorrow I'll take you all to the beach.

Unexpectedly, Skovoola turns up at the beach as well, wearing a strangely patterned shirt.

I enjoyed that. Largely because of the art. Golden Book Barbie is much more in proportion than the Barbie doll. She looks exactly like quintessential beautiful young woman I spent many hours trying unsuccessfully to capture with my coloured pencils when I was ten.

What time is it now? Five past three. And mum is still here, sitting under the hollyhocks. Time to open up the second National Geographic. Ah! It's all about extinction.

The Art of Waiting

Where am I? Oh! I'm in the waiting room of the Ashford Dermatology Clinic. I'm with my mum who is having some things removed. I don't know it yet, but I will be here for quite some time. Like fifty five minutes! But I am resourceful and decide to fill my hour with ART.

First I choose some literature to peruse. I choose a National Geographic, dated January 2009, a Little Golden Book called Barbie Soccer Coach, and finally, another National Geographic.

The first National Geographic is full of amazing photographs. Bulging-eyed red-mouthed sweaty black men in the Peruvian Andes digging for gold, unpaid for thirty days out of thirty one, because on the thirty first day they're allowed to keep all the gold they can bring up in a four hour shift. In the photo they look like men who are thinking, Shit it's only day three.

Every photo in the National Geographic has a wow factor. There is one with such an excess of wow factor that they have folded it in half. When you open it up you see Kronotsky Volcano, which is somewhere on the Kronotsky Peninsula in Russia. Wow! In the foreground are black rocky mountains streaked with white snow. The volcano itself is a beautiful heart-melting blue, wreathed in soft grey smoke. To the left of the volcano, delicate pink clouds; to the right, blue-grey clouds; to the extreme far right, WOW! a pile-up of stacked lenticular clouds. Stacked lenticular clouds! I must google that one day. But in fact I can see what they are. They look like a stack of flat pink macaroons. WOW!

It is ten to three. I've been waiting twenty minutes. I turn my attention to Barbie Soccer Coach.

Where are You Coming From Daughter?

On Friday I was in the Elder Hall, sitting next to my mum, who had a dreadful cold. We were waiting for the Lunch Hour Concert to begin. We'd sat at the end of a row in case my mum had a coughing fit, which was quite likely. She rummaged in her bag for a sweet.

Would you like a Butter Menthol? she asked me. I said, Err..... yes thank you, I would.

That could be a song.

Would you like a Butter Menthol ? she asked me.
I said, Err.... yes thank you, I would.
But then I felt suddenly certain
Her cold germs would do me no good.
Butter Menthols are not wrapped up these days
And ones she had touched were inside
If I was unlucky and ate one
It might be the reason I died.
Cough cough.....

How very silly. I apologise wholeheartedly for that. Now to continue.....

The concert was Rosalind Martin, singing songs of Chopin and Schumann, in a lacy latte dress.
Most of the songs were about longing, and as a consequence were quite sad. But my favorite was the Lithuanian Song: ( of course it was in Lithuanian )

Very early one morning, the sun was rising,
Near the glass window Mother was sitting;
Where, she asks, are you coming from my daughter?
Where did you get your wreath all wet?

The daughter replies that it's wet because she had to get up early to fetch water, but Mother isn't having any of it, and accuses her daughter of running off into a field to chat with a boy.

It's true, it's true, Mother, truth I'd rather say-
My sweetheart I spotted in the field;
We only spent a few minutes talking,
And in that time, dew settled on my wreath.

You can see why I liked it.

Murk

This afternoon we walked along the esplanade towards Seacliff. It was warm and a little bit windy. The sky was blue and puffy. The sea, sapphire and amber, the sand dunes bejewelled with silken strings of portulaca, gazania and wild yellow oxalis. I'm telling you this so you will understand how pretty it was and how unlike Murk.

Last night we watched a Danish movie on SBS. It was called Murk. In Danish it was called Morke, with a line through the o. That may or may not be pronounced Murk, I don't know. Let us say that it is.

The movie was about Jacob whose brain damaged sister had died on the eve of her wedding to Anker, a weird guy from Murk, who she'd met on the internet. Jacob suspected that Anker had murdered his sister.

He drove to Murk, along a wet grey country road. Murk had an air of foreboding. Anker was fat and had the sort of haircut that made you think he was capable of murdering your sister.

We never found out if he had. But that isn't relevant here. What's relevant is that as we were walking along the shining esplanade this afternoon towards Seacliff, the sun went momentarily behind a cloud, six cars drove by in a slow procession and a young man shouted from the back of the second car, which was a black car, EEEEEUUUUUHHH!!!

And the esplanade took on an air of forboding, like Murk.

Deep Connections

Why so glum? asked Pliny the Elder.

So much for connectivity in my three random things, I replied. All I have come up with so far is this: The fence in story one, the sand on the beach in story two, and the coconut cakes in story three.

What about them? asked Pliny.

They were the same colour, I said.

No one would even guess that, said Pliny. You didn't mention the colour of the fence. Perhaps you should look at the bigger picture. These are not just random things, they are complex random events. It seems to me that there is plenty of connectivity if you examine them as a trilogy.

Oh really? I said. Go on.

Firstly, said Pliny, in his best didactic manner, there is the element of time. The Big Bang occurs in the night time. The Half Woman in the afternoon, and the Lucky Person in the morning.

So they do, I said.

Secondly, length, said Pliny. The Big Bang is a short story, the Half Woman is mid-length and the Lucky Person is long.

Certainly true, I said.

Thirdly, went on Pliny, in the Big Bang story, we have an emptiness in the middle of the story, a lack of relevant information that would enable us to solve the mystery. In the Half Woman, we are presented with, as it were, a half-set of information, which none the less enables the mystery to be solved. In the Lucky Person, we have a set of instructions given over the telephone by a so-called 'real person', enabling the protagonist to uncover a unique and lucky number.

A possibly lucky number, I corrected.

Yes, said Pliny.

Well that is most impressive, I said. But what does it mean?

It means, said Pliny, that your three stories when examined together represent aspects of things that are common to all human experience. Time, emptiness, half-truths, whole truths, the processing of information, luck, and the sharing of cakes.....

He stopped, and looked at me pointedly.

Thank you, I said.