There’s a donut place down the street from my art class. It’s the classic old fashioned kind of joint, the kind you find in San Francisco, Chinese family run, no frills, pink box, donuts still warm from the oven, linoleum floor, aggressively bad coffee, maybe even powdered creamer, and it is packed. There is a line up out the door on Friday mornings where I stop and buy a dozen for our class. Truth, I want the pink box. And the sprinkly pretty kind of donut. The lady is holding her prongs impatiently wondering why it takes me so long to pick my assortment and I tell her, I’m going to paint them. She nods. Smiles. Sure you are. Whatever, keep picking lady. Time is money. I look up and notice she is putting them in a white box. A boring nothing anybody can have a white box kind of donut box. Um, sorry to be a pain, but do you think I can have a pink box instead? Smile turns to frown. Pink box, you pick a dozen, ok? Okay, I say. I choose my twelve, faster than I would prefer but I’m golden, I’ve got the box, I’ve got warm donuts, I’ve got that fresh baked deep fried sweet and salty scent and I have a visual of an actual cop standing in line at a donut shop. Yes. I do a high five arm swish in my head.
Puck’s Donuts. If God is in the details and the details are in the pink box, I am a blessed and blissed out to bear witness to how the muse arrived on this one. Tied up with a string. xo
“Puck’s” 16×20″ Available from me directly. Email: mcarpenter@carpediempapers.com
