Red wall

Untitled, San Francisco, May 2007.

Every city needs a hideaway to mute the hurlyburly of living in it. It can be as grand as Central Park or as modest as a rock (shade would be nice, ocean view optional). What matters is getting a chance to zone out and tune in.


I have such a hideaway in San Francisco that is as modest as hideaways come: benches made of concrete with a grove of bamboo trees beside them. Behind the benches is a wall of fieriest red that blazes even hotter during certain points of the day. The bamboo leaves would cast shadows on it like Chinese brush paintings that move with the wind. The traffic signs would make patterns on it that remind me of Paul Klee's balloons. The shadows on the wall mesmerize like passing clouds that you watch while lying barefoot on a knoll. It's my hideaway, and I won't tell you where it is.

Paul Klee, Red Balloon, 1922.