Searching for small pleasures has come to be the theme of the near year under Covid quarantine measures. Here in the Netherlands, thanks to the new, more virulent, and perhaps deadlier version of the virus, we now have a curfew in addition to a lockdown, and a jarringly slow moving state vaccination apparatus. Mask wearing remains less common than in other places for reasons I can’t comprehend. There’s no crazy right-wing movement for freedom (except regarding the lockdowns), and if people would just diligently wear masks EVERYWHERE, perhaps we could be free of some of the more draconian measures now on offer here.
So it goes. Every place appears to have its own intractable problems in Covid suppression, except East Asia, which seems to have managed pretty well.
In any case, small pleasures have been on my mind: I found an Italian bakery that carries canolis just when my eldest was missing them. It’s strange what you miss when you move abroad. He hasn’t had a canoli in years. Even when we lived in NYC, it wasn’t something we often ate. For my part, along with many other people who’ve had to limit their contacts in the world, birds have become a great fascination. Before moving to Amsterdam, I probably hadn’t seen a live magpie for at least a decade. I don’t even know if they live in the US. They’re entirely commonplace here, and astoundingly beautiful. Their elegant shape and iridescent feathers are captivating. I bet most people who are used to them have stopped noticing how lovely they are. Maybe they’re even thought of as a nuisance, like pigeons or grackles.
In any case, they inspired me to paint today. Since all of my possessions are on a boat somewhere in the North Sea, I had to make do with my son’s art kit. It has one of those cheap kid’s plastic paintbrushes that are almost impossible to control. The paint itself left something to be desired in quality, and my sketchbook isn’t really made for watercolor, nevertheless, I persisted. I may not have done the magpie justice, but I feel it was a worthy attempt. This bird deserves oil on canvas.