Friday, May 6, 2011

Graffiti Girl

Yesterday, as I was driving home from work and enjoying the cool, sun-scented wind through the opened windows of my car, I saw a girl in the distance. She was standing at the base of a billboard. She was busy, but I couldn't tell what with.

As I got closer, I saw that she was a young woman, clad in pretty, young-womanly clothes -- summer clothes. Her feet were bare and her copper-red hair was long, copious and partially pulled back with a lime-green ribbon. She looked like the nicest girl in her class -- maybe an honors student; maybe the valedictorian.


So, what she was doing surprised me: She was spray-painting the leg of the billboard that was closest to the roadside. It was broad daylight, and she was adding a spiral line of orange beside the ones she had already done in blue and green, making the billboard's leg look like King Kong's Carribean candy cane.

Almost involuntarily, I scanned around for police, who normally picked spots along this road to catch speeders. I was relieved to see none.

Why was she doing this? Why was she so unconcerned about being caught?

Either way, I was concerned she would get caught, all of a sudden. Either way, she became my hero for the day. Either way, she figured out a way to bring something that was normally overlooked in this world out into the light -- and to bring it alive with color.

That night, lying in bed, I got a tinge of worry for her again and then convinced myself that it was silly and fell into a colorless sleep.

I looked for her work on the billboard pole on the way in today, but I missed it. But on the way home, I saw it, and it made me smile.

(UPDATE: There's now a matching mailbox about three miles away.)

2 comments:

  1. interesting, I would have pulled over and added something to the "art-work"

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  2. Then I congratulate you on your "Graffiti Girl" guts, but I would caution you against disrupting her artistic vision. She's quite the post-modern maverick.

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