Day One:
10 a.m. My granddaughter Myah pulls out some unfinished school work that requires coloring. We have already filled in some of the details, but Myah wants to color in the characters. She rummages through the box of crayons and markers, murmuring that she needs “flesh-tone.” Myah’s mother is bi-racial, her father is white, her maternal grandmother is white, and her maternal grandfather is me: African American. Myah is a blondish, reddish, brownish-haired, blue-eyed, kindergartener.
I am the artist in her life, so I gently guide her away from the term “flesh-tone” as we search for a crayon that meets her requirements.
5:30 p.m. I go to Michaels and buy two boxes of crayons: “Colors Of The World.”
Day Two:
6 p.m. Another rehearsal of Harmony Collected, sponsored by the Irvington Arts Collective, and directed by Dr. Webb Parker. This gathering of singers from the community is rehearsing for performances, and I joined them, though I cannot, as I told Webb, read music. Webb reassured me, and I will soldier on, hoping that the tenor next to me is singing the correct notes, for I am following him.
Day Three:
5 p.m. I go out for First Friday with my friend — we start at the Circle City Industrial Complex, then go to the Harrison Center.
7:30 p.m. We end up at the Marilyn Rose Center. We run into some members of the Eastside Arts Collective, a group that I joined some years ago. The group tries to meet monthly, but we have not met for a while. It was good to see so many of them.
Day Four:
6 p.m. I’m at the unveiling of a historical marker for jazz great Wes Montgomery. I had watched a documentary called “Wes Bound” on television station WFYI and saw a Pittsburgh native being interviewed about Wes. Jazz guitarist George Benson was born on the Hill District, where I grew up; I saw him play in many of the clubs that primed his career.
7 p.m. Guitarist Steve Weakley is softly strumming “How Insensitive (Insensatez)” in the thumb style that Wes made famous, and which was featured on his 1966 album “Tequila.” The bystander who overhears me murmuring the notes that I have listened to for years seems amused by my adding of the flourishes that I remember from Wes’ recording.
Day Five:
3 p.m. At THE LUME’s presentation of “Dalí Alive” at Newfields. Salvador Dalí’s animated paintings wash across the guests as I stroll through the rooms with my friend Paula Nicewanger. Biographic information appears on the walls as butterflies flit across the ceilings and floors. Dalí’s clocks melt in his surreal landscapes, and I experience some disorientation. I sit on a bench to finish the experience, watching small children gazing in wonder at the living art.
Day Six:
6:30 p.m. I’m drinking a foam-topped pint of Magners at SNUG, the new Irish bar in Irvington, trying to hear Paula Nicewanger and Ethel Winslow in the hubbub, when my butt buzzes with the ringing of my phone. I answer — my youngest daughter, Lauren, tells me, “Myah saw you: Come outside.”
6:35 p.m. I step out and my kindergarten joy flies into my arms. Myah and Lauren were out biking when Myah told her mother, “I saw Clop!” She had to be restrained from running into the bar to hug me, so her mother called me. We whirl in a non-Irish jig, her helmeted head bobbing as I dance her around.
Day Seven:
11 a.m. The shadow of a hawk crawls across the grass as I walk through Ellenberger Park; I look up and see it wheel in the cloudless, robin’s egg sky.
12:30 p.m. I go to the Irving Circle and take pictures of tiles embedded in the broken street. I wonder who might have placed those tiles on that part of University Avenue, a well-traveled public street. An Irvington mystery, much like the Toynbee Tiles.