Untitled 3

for Staci, who was there

I guess a possible title for this blog post  could be "The Gift of the Magi", as in that old O. Henry story. But I am still not sure.

Probably for the first time, I have begun to  understand why some artists, namely painters, resort to what I had previously thought of as the most unimaginative strategy in the world: naming your piece "Untitled".

Naming your piece "Untitled" does not necessarily equate to throwing your kid out into the world without a name, as some people say. I have just discovered that naming a post "Untitled" (Sin título, in Spanish) is acknowledging that something is still in the works: an idea, an emotion, a connection, a sentence, a wish. 

Naming my piece(s) "Untitled" is a way of honouring the space that an experience —a trip, a loving reunion, a sigh— has opened up inside me, around me, above & below me,  and whose implications I cannot yet fully fathom . 

In the meantime, I can go back to the Magi who waved at me  on a small street in Oaxaca city 11 days ago, on January the 6th. Staci and I were coming back "home", under this mysterious Oaxacan moon, after sharing a big cup of traditional Oaxacan chocolate and  one of our endless chin wags. And, of course, we turned left when we should have turned right (story of our life in Oaxaca) and then, on the other side of the street, I saw them: the Three Wise Men from the East, getting ready to bring gifts to the children, with their animals tied up on top of an old car. My inner girl was elated. "I knew they were real. I knew it", she kept repeating. Staci smiled. We walked some more steps and then retraced our path. The Magi were still standing on the street. Their mounts were still on top of the car. They waved again to us. I smiled, inside and out. My little girl was beaming and she was not alone. A gift of the Magi. No doubt. 

And they still managed to manifest another couple of gifts some days later back "home" in Cuernavaca: a cloud in the bottom of a tiny clay bowl and a pair of playful rabbits aiming for the moon. 

Who can ask for more?