Imaginary wax museum.

22:00

The city is still softly awake.  Time is moving slowly, as  though our life source is the sun. We fade as it fades, the sky dropping various flowing blues, spotted with luminous clouds, some look brown at first glance, but really they are peach and mauve, others are not charcoal gray but phtalo blue splattered ink that looks like a pile of cars, or an alligator, or just a well loved stained blanket, that rolling back leaves the stars.   I’m sitting outside, in a place that I’ve comve before to write. I can see the neighbourhood.  Couples walk, their hands swinging.  There is muddled laughter,  yellow globe lights reveal the swaying sillouettes of long skirts, gracefully complementing silent, aimless steps.  I can see the sparkle of cigarettes dancing along pathways from hand to mouth, coming closer or moving farther away. I can see the bedroom light in our fifteenth floor apartment, left on accidently when we spontaneously decided to go out and enjoy the twilight. 

            The air is blissfully light and refreshing.  A few hours ago, the sun, blazing down in it’s nightly finale, splashing orange and pink shadows on the wall through the gaps in our closed curtains, took with it the hot, saturated air, and now the breeze is beautiful, the temperature heavenly.  And a better heavenly than the air conditioned waiting room just outside the laundry room, or the basement where we had juice and strawberry shortcake and icecream after church. 

It’s been an unusual Sunday, no fresh baking this morning, no wild music on the way to Grace.  Instead, a perfectly timed bus ride to Parkwood, where I’m working for the summer.  Carla and I sat on hard wooden pews in a warm sanctuary, with brick walls and thick wooden beams in the lofty ceiling.  My fingers ran along the grain of the wooden pew in front of me as I sang, eyes closed, an old melody of organ notes resonating through the room, a joining of old and new spaces: the sanctuary itself being built in two stages, the hundred year old hymn digitally projected onto a screen while books are left in the pews.  The grain and the ringing and the song and the lighting and the fan above me spins me into my childhood.  I watch the children run up to the front of the church, and crowd around the pastor, white collar around his neck against a black shirt and jacket.  He smiles as he holds a piece of fishing line, and talks about Jesus calling Simon Peter to be a “fisher of men.”  I smile too. But mine is not at the child dancing as we sing, or at the pastor teaching actions, or at the sun shining in windows, but at my younger self, standing in the front of Knox, learning the same song, making the same actions, hearing the same story…and I ponder a child like faith. 

              It’s been a beautiful weekend, with just the right amount of chores, relaxing, and spending time with friends.  And it’s so lovely to finish it off, sitting in the quiet of the night outside with Carla, who is reading by flashlight, patiently keeping me company as I write.   She’s always selflessly dropping things to come along with me, and I appreciate it so much.

            This post was supposed to begin on Thursday night.  I thought it out while I was at work, in the process of making a banner for a childrens’ activity coming up this Fall.  I was in my office, alone in the building, choosing crayola wax crayons out of a little glass, colouring in grapes and squash and apples and nuts and leaves and pears in a cornucopea.  I love the feel of crayon on paper.  It’s an unpredictable conglomerate of smoothness and resistance and the smell of colour as it slips and glides and sticks and stains, swirling curuleon or magenta thoughts in pictures animating the inanimate, lifeless, emotionless page.  But as I attempt to place the colour where I want it, trying to blend colours together, and keep the entire potpourri of news hapes within the restricting black lines infornt of me,  I realize how impractical they are.  Why is it that every child learning to colour starts with crayons? These are the tools we choose for children – instruments of the imagination, the recording of a language that can only be spoken in the moment, and interpreted thereafter.  A dull, rounded tip makes tangible abstract thoughts, in the hands of a child who is refining motor skills, and being told to clour within the lines.  I cant even see the crayon touching the page, my hand is in the way.  A light touch just skims the page, leaving a disappointing line compared to the vibrant wax I hold in my hand.  When you press harder, the crayon breaks.  And then theres the complications of paper wrappings and small boxes, and white, freshly painted walls. 

Don’t get me wrong – I love crayons.  I love the dandilion and forest green box, especially the big one with the useless plastic sharpener on the back.  But I wonder how many more artists there would be if we started with something more suited to our five year old selves. 

 23:00 

I still have hats and explosions and infinite to talk about...but heavy eyelids and an acute awareness of time restrictions are calling me to a land of dreams...stay tuned for part two, hopefully before the words spinning around in my head are replaced by something less exciting.