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Transcript
- There is a specific kind of silence that only exists at 4:30 AM, right under the concrete belly of a highway overpass, where the world hasn’t quite decided if it’s night or day yet. It is in this liminal space that I found the most honest story of my year, painted not on a canvas, but on crumbling concrete by hands that wanted to be seen but never heard. Let’s unpack that scene for a moment. You’re standing there, your boots damp with dew, and the air smells like exhaust and wet stone. Above you, the traffic is just beginning to hum, a low-frequency vibration that you feel in your teeth before you hear it with your ears. But down here, in the shadow of the support pillars, someone has turned the gray monotony into a riot of color. These aren’t official public art installations commissioned by the city council. There are no plaques, no QR codes linking to an artist’s biography, no velvet ropes. This is unauthorized beauty. It’s illegal, yes, but it feels more sacred than anything hanging in a museum gallery because it was created for the people who pass through here every single day without looking up. I remember the first time I stumbled upon one of these hidden galleries. It was three years ago, during a particularly dark winter when I felt like I was moving through life in grayscale. I took the long way home, cutting through the industrial district just to avoid the empty streets of my neighborhood. And there, tucked behind a chain-link fence, was a mural of a woman’s face. Her eyes were closed, her expression peaceful, and she was surrounded by flowers that seemed to be bursting out of the cracks in the pavement. The paint was already fading, chipped away by rain and wind, but the emotion remained. It stopped me dead in my tracks. In that moment, the weight I had been carrying all week lifted, just a little bit. It wasn’t because the painting was technically perfect—it wasn’t. The perspective was slightly off, and the colors bled into each other in places. But it was real. It was human. And it was there, waiting for anyone brave enough to look. What fascinates me about these underpass murals is not just the final image, but the ritual of their creation. They are born in the dark. The artists work before dawn breaks completely, often finishing just as the streetlights flicker off and the first buses rumble past. There is a urgency to it, a frantic energy that comes from knowing that visibility is fleeting. If they are caught, they face fines or worse. If they are too slow, the sun comes up, and the magic of the night dissolves into the harsh glare of day. So they paint fast, intuitive, trusting their instincts rather than planning every brushstroke. This reminds me so much of how we write our own lives. We often wait for the perfect conditions, for the light to be just right, for the fear to subside. But these artists know that the best stories happen in the margins of time, in the hours when everyone else is asleep. They understand that beauty doesn’t need permission. It just needs space. And in those early morning hours, beneath the towering infrastructure of modern society, they carve out that space. It’s a rebellion against the noise, a quiet insistence that art belongs everywhere, even in the places we usually ignore. I think about this whenever I sit down to write my own drafts. Do I wait for the muse? Or do I show up in the dark, paintbrush in hand, ready to create something beautiful before the world wakes up? When you look closely at these murals, the subtext is screaming. They are rarely about grand political statements or abstract concepts. They are intimate. They are portraits of neighbors, sketches of local pets, tributes to lost loved ones. One wall near my old apartment featured a series of cats, each one distinct, each one wearing a tiny collar or hat. Another depicted a young girl reaching for a kite that drifted out of frame. These images speak to a community that exists in the shadows of the city, a community that is often overlooked but deeply connected. As a literary detective, I spend a lot of time looking for clues in text, searching for the emotions that writers hide between the lines. Here, the clues are visual. The choice of colors tells you about the mood—bright yellows for hope, deep blues for melancholy. The texture of the paint tells you about the speed—the thick impasto suggests passion, while the thin washes suggest haste. And the location tells you about the audience. These are not for collectors; they are for commuters, for late-night workers, for insomniacs. They are designed to be seen by the weary. I find myself wondering if this is the purest form of storytelling we have left. No words, no narration, just raw emotion projected onto the walls of our shared spaces. It forces us to pay attention. You can’t scroll past a mural on a highway pillar. You have to stop. You have to look. And in that pause, something shifts. I want to hear from you. Tell me what you saw in the margins of your own life this week. Maybe it wasn’t a mural, but it was a moment—a glance, a sound, a feeling—that lingered after everything else faded. Did you notice a flower growing through a crack in the sidewalk? A handwritten note left on a bench? A stranger’s kindness that felt like a secret gift? These small things are the underpass murals of our daily existence. They are the art we create and consume in the quiet hours, the moments that define us more than the loud events. I’ve started keeping a notebook specifically for these marginalia. Not the big ideas, but the tiny details. The way the light hits the dust motes in the afternoon. The smell of rain on hot asphalt. The sound of a distant train whistle. These details are the pigments of my memory, the colors I use to paint my understanding of the world. When I read books or watch films, I look for these same details. I look for the moments that feel true, not because they are dramatic, but because they are specific. Specificity is the heart of empathy. When we see the exact shade of blue in a character’s eyes, or the precise texture of their jacket, we connect. We recognize ourselves in them. And isn’t that what we are all looking for? To be seen, exactly as we are, in all our messy, imperfect glory? One of the most poignant aspects of these underpass murals is their impermanence. They are destined to fade. Rain will wash them away. Sunlight will bleach the colors. Graffiti tags might cover them up. New layers of concrete might seal them forever. And yet, the artists continue to paint. Why? Because the act of creation is its own reward. The joy is in the doing, not the keeping. It’s a reminder that we don’t need permanence to matter. Our love, our art, our kindness—they may not last forever, but they leave a mark. They change the atmosphere of the place they touch. In a culture obsessed with legacy, with building empires and leaving monuments, there is something radically liberating about ephemeral art. It asks us to let go. To trust that the impact we make, however brief, is enough. I think about this when I edit my own work. I release the episodes, I send the books out into the world, and then I have to let them go. I can’t control how they are received, or how long they last. All I can do is pour my heart into the process, trusting that somewhere, someone will stop mid-scroll and feel less alone. That is the goal. Not immortality, but connection. Not a monument, but a moment. And sometimes, a moment is all we need to survive the day. So, as we wrap up today, I invite you to look for your own underpass murals. Look for the beauty in the places that are supposed to be ugly. Look for the art in the mundane. Look for the humanity in the strangers who pass you on the street. The world is full of hidden galleries, waiting for us to notice. And when you find them, take a moment. Stand still. Breathe. Let the color seep into your bones. Let the silence hold you. We live in a noisy world, a fast-paced world that demands our constant attention. But beauty often hides in the quiet corners, in the hours when the rest of the world is asleep. It waits for us to slow down, to look closer, to see the details. And when we do, we find that we are not as alone as we thought. We are part of a larger story, a collective narrative written in paint and pigment, in words and whispers. It is a story of resilience, of creativity, of hope. And it is being written every day, in the shadows, by people who refuse to let the darkness win. Thank you for listening, for pausing, for being here. Keep looking up. Keep looking down. Keep looking within. The art is everywhere, if only you know where to look. Until next time, keep your eyes open and your heart soft. I’m Caoimhe, and I’ll be thinking of you, right here in the margins. Stay curious, stay tender, and keep painting your own masterpieces, one brushstroke at a time.