Watching Paint Dry
Feb 25 2008


(I enjoy exploring cliches. And this is also a kind of challenge to myself: what's the most boring thing imaginable I could possibly try writing about?!!)

I am watching paint dry.
I’ve been told there is nothing on earth more boring;
worse than watching curling
with the sound turned-off,
or porridge every morning for life.

But a freshly painted wall
is a thing of beauty,
transformed from scuffed beige
to “Luscious Pink”
or “Jailbait Blue”.
It smooths-on behind the roller
with a pleasant sucking sound,
leaving the surface glistening
and the wall somehow bigger.
And the room made new
— cleansed of whatever happened here,
old inhabitants banished.

As the sun descends
I watch light fade and shadows lengthen;
the colour deepening,
the surface now egg-shell dull.
I sit, breathing slowly in and out
— a master of Zen,
losing track of time.

The trick is to know when it’s dry
— not tacky
but smooth to the touch.
And that’s the thing,
it’s not such an ordeal watching paint dry, after all.
A couple of hours,
watching colours change
and history vanish
and shadows pass.
Which match exactly the planet’s majestic motion
— my room a camera obscura,
an observatory down on earth.

And, for a few hours alone
in an empty room
I contemplate whatever comes up.
And cultivate the art of restraint
— resisting the temptation of touch.