I’m sitting at my work table painting many little paintings all at once. I can hear the dog breathing at my feet, and a black bird cuts through the blue sky out my windows. A distant white noise of cars on the highway can be heard, just barely.

I place a curve of gold paint here, and the thinnest black line I know how to make over there. I clean my brush. And then I hear them. They’re coming.

They’re coming!

This is my favorite time of day. It is the part of the day when the little bambinos from the Italian School walk down my street, past my windows that are up so high, their little bodies wiggling somewhere underneath.

They’re coming!

I can’t see them. But I SEE them. Their little voices a school of fish. Their colorful chirps, layered pure, bright colors, getting closer, loosely floating down my street covering the dry concrete with their glossy songs that float up into the blue blue blue sky.

Their watercolor voices, now right outside, swim through my windows and dance above my table. They swirl through the room. Pure yellows chase wisps of pink. And smily emerald greens leap and bounce and summersault off of the cutest, smooshiest dimple of a polka dot. These tiny little happy shapes flutter and giggle with my canvases and wash over my eyes.

Moments later, they’re gone. (Probably sipping milk with both hands out of straws and drawing bugs with very important names like Mr.George and watching with big eyes as big birds fly through the pure blue shape of sky that holds us all underneath.)

I sit at my table, smiling and filled with color. I see their pure golden voices across all of my paintings.