Some seven years back, exploring the Menil art museums in Houston, Texas, I came upon a gallery devoted to the works of Cy Twombly. I had no knowledge of this artist and at first was taken aback by the amount of space devoted to a painter who liked to doodle and scribble on large canvases without evidence of much forethought, or concern about composition or polish. Some of them had material in only one corner of the canvas, as though he'd jotted a grocery list, then wandered off. But as we walked from room to room, a power in his work dealt me a dazzling blow. What was this about?

Then I found one piece with some fish and meandering words in his inimitable terrible hand. My first reaction was - this is mine! I, a first-time visitor, had created this. I never had that feeling before about another person's art, nor since, but it was as though I'd stumbled upon something I'd left behind in another life. More realistically, I felt a bond with the artist who a few minutes ago I hadn't known at all.

We took leave of the building to find another artist's works - neon light tubes in a large space reminiscent of a skating rink. But first we gabbed with a gallery employee who was handing pecans to a squirrel outside, and who gave us each a pecan to offer to the boisterous-tailed resident.