The disregard for the futility of painting metal appears to be universal. all around the city people armed with thin paint brushes and bright green paint “touch up” the railings that line city streets. where they paint, the dark metal shines through. beside it, further down where hands tend not to trail, the paint is thick – layered from years of touch up- revealing the passage of time like rings on a tree.
***
Sunday proved to be busier than i’d anticipated. slow to simmer when we arrived around 8am – our usual time – by 10:30 shops we thought closed for the weekend flung their closed signs aside and seemingly spontaneous markets erupted cloth, clothes and people. of course spontaneous was most likely its antithesis – it simply appeared that way to me – a stranger in the city.
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I cannot tell if i am paranoid of wearing the wrong colored glasses or some other thing i haven’t thought of – but it appears to me that i am usually ignored. ignored is the wrong word. overlooked is more accurate. i get stared at. people may ask where i am from – but mostly…when things happen they turn to ruby and direct all conversations and eye contact in her general direction.
***
the sounds of this place are varied. the birds gathering in the trees around dusk- it sounds as if swarms of them have descended on the city. this morning – a man on a recorder, light and airy sounding from the sidewalk – knee level, the pleas of a disabled, the old, maybe just the down trodden – begging for change. and i am sightless. i see them, hear them, and am at once overwhelmed. it is the clinking of coins – a distinct metallic shuffling…the sound haunts me.