Shine, Tiny Sun

City-Watching Field Notes 6th May 2023

“Oh, if I had the wings of a gull, my boys, I’d spread them and fly home…”¹

Moon drawing. Camera / long exposure

Full Moon day. Sightings of a humpback on the Whale and Dolphin page. As I wait for the bus to the city I look out to sea to see if I can see it breaching. White-caps. No luck— it’s away to the East somewhere.
(Last Winter I saw two humpbacks in Raukawa Moana / Cook Strait, a week apart. A surreal and mind-blowing sight: huge frolicsome sea-beasts, breaching high and crashing down, tail-lobbing, pectoral-slapping. Barnacled jaws, long fins like wings,² pleated bellies dazzling white.)

I see a tarapunga, a red-billed gull, walking around on the far side of the road. It is nodding its head as if bowing. Nod, nod, yes, yes. It still has baby feathers in its wings. It wanders around on the road like it doesn’t know what cars are. Pat, pat, pat, the red feet on the tarmac. The bowing and walking make it seem humanoid. (Why did the seagull cross the road?) Maybe it can’t fly. But when it is almost across to my side a car swings around the corner and it takes fright and flight.

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Brooklyn. Changing buses. An old man sitting in the bus stop with two ragged blue carrier bags tells me he’s got a Lotto ticket. “Powerball. I have to check it on Sunday. I hope I win.”
Me: “I hope you win, too.”
Him: “I live in the flats down the bottom of the hill. I hate it there. If I win Lotto I’m going to move to Ōtaki and live with my Granddaughter.”

When he speaks he casts his eyes down. He is wearing a plaid shirt that was once black and white.

Him: “Are you going to work?”
Me: “I’m going to my friend’s exhibition opening.”
Him: “What work do you do? I’m an arc-welder. And a craftsman electrician.”
Me: “I’m an artist. It’s a bit spooky, electricity, isn’t it? I mean, it’s invisible. You can’t see it.”
That makes him laugh. He lifts his eyes up. They are a good green.

“Yeah, if I win Powerball I’m going to go live in Ōtaki with my Granddaughter. She’s Māori. I’m part-Māori too.”
Me: “Where are your people from?”
Him: “Ngāti Toa.”
Me: “So Ōtaki is your homelands.”
Him: “I hope I win Powerball.”
Me: “I hope you do, too.”

As we’re getting on the bus, I say that if I struck it rich, I’d buy gold earrings, like a pirate. And custom-made boots.

At the bottom of the hill I look up from writing in my journal and see him walking down the sloping road to the flats, bent-backed, holding his jeans up at the back of his hips with both hands.

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After the show³ I arrive at the bus stop with three minutes to spare. The bus timetable is graven into my subconscious by now, but it's still a stroke of timing to arrive at the exact right moment. (The bus comes once an hour on a Saturday, if it comes at all.) Just like when I get the green man the very moment I arrive at the crossing, without breaking stride, it feels like a gift from the city.

From the bus window I see a man and a woman walking along Manners, dressed entirely in shades of orange from the waist up. Tops, jackets, scarves, hats. (A kind of railroad cap: peaked but baggy.) The woman’s phone cover is also orange.
Immediate read: cult members. Nobody loves orange that much.

A moment later I see two old Chinese ladies wearing the exact same multi-coloured striped jumper; but one has taken it off and slung it round her neck.

Fashion twinning or even tripletting is common in the city— convergent fashion-evolution. See a pair of friends, head to toe variations on a stylistic theme. (Shoulderblade-length hair, white crop top, baggy jeans, platform loafers, for instance.)

After dark on a weekend this tendency intensifies into pack-uniforms. Courtenay Babylon. Eyelashes, short strapless dresses and high heels. Kev the other night in the Dragon mentioned ‘shirt-boys’— UK slang— and I knew exactly what he meant: flash lads on the town. Starchy button shirts. The way they roister along the streets, vaping, pushing each other. The clouds of cologne they emanate like pheromones, like a moth signalling its desire, its availability.

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P.S. 7th May 2023. Walking on the beach talking on the phone. This small yellow marble three-quarters-buried in the dark wet sand. Like a tiny Sun, or an egg yolk.

1. Weary Whaling Grounds - Ian Giles

2. Megaptera novaeangliae: Big Wings of New England.

3. https://www.avidgallery.com/exhibition/distancing-social