I stepped out of my front door, set my cello on the porch, closed the door behind me, reached into my pocket for my keys, and remembered they were on the little stand in the hall.
Fortunately, I do this often enough that I keep a spare house key in the car.
Unfortunately, I've recently gotten into the habit of locking my car doors, even though it took me five years after finding part of a broken pipe on the floor one morning.
Fortunately, I could see that I had left the driver's side unlocked this time.
I smiled at the sun, took up my cello and got ready to go to N-'s house to practice a duet we'll perform in February.
In the next two minutes of loading in, I started to daydream about planting the seeds I bought last week, which led me to think about my new knowledge that regular dirt is unhealthy for some seeds, which made me wonder if M- would believe me, which got me thinking about whether it's women he doesn't like to agree with, or just me, which made me think about M-G-'s husband and how he probably agrees with her lots but I wouldn't want to be married to him anyway.
I shut the passenger side door with my cello in place, walked around the front of the car, and was struck by the hazy memory of having pressed the lock button.
Yup, I was now locked out of house and car. A quick mental inventory of our home's windows revealed that my typical break-in routes were no-gos. Miraculously, I had not left the phone inside either house or car, so I called N- to tell her I would be very, very late.
And here's why this post is about my neighborhood: I walked down the street to C-'s house, where she took me in and offered me a cup of tea. (Note to self: give C- a spare house key.) We sat at her kitchen table, drank Rooibos tea, rubbed the dog's head, and talked about jobs, the economy, our kids' schools. The sun shone through a cut glass pendant in the window and made a rainbow on the floor.
Even the small act of getting up to wash the dogsmell off my hands at her kitchen sink without interrupting our conversation made me feel happy. No need for those funny gestures, aiming one's hands in the direction of the sink while airwashing them, raising one's eyebrows, saying "May I?" as one would do in a mere acquaintance's house. The kitchen sink, sort of a personal altar, is not something to use lightly.
Eventually 1 came home from school with a key and I went along to my duet practice.
Showing posts with label city life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label city life. Show all posts
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Flight
I entered the desolate stairwell at work and saw a lone little brown leaf on the floor, then had that odd feeling, when knowledge overlaps perception, for in the next demi-instant I saw that it was a bat, too dark brown to be a leaf; also, somehow I felt it was still alive.
I nudged it with my toe, and it gave a crackling hiss, feebly twisted its angular wings. It was clearly injured, and angry. I wanted either to gently scoot it out of the way or to kill it bloodlessly. I touched it again with my boot, to make sure it wasn't going to suddenly spring into flight. It hissed again. I would have been afraid if I were a small animal, and as it was, I felt so unsettled by this bat, even though I knew it couldn't hurt me, that I left it where it was and went up to the office.
Someone took a box down, turned it over the bat and pushed it off to the side. Later, after a call to Animal Control ("What I'm gonna need for you to do is to put it in a plastic bag"), I found a Dollar Tree bag and a vague determination to be decisive. No one in the office had leather gloves.
The bat was weaker. I leaned closer and saw its tiny pointed ears and flat nose shaped like the roof of a pagoda. Its wings and pillowy body were crushed indeterminately together. This flying mammal: how different from me. It turned its head back toward me, just barely, and gave a hiss more like a sigh.
It took me three or four tries to grab the small bundle of its body without flinching, my hand inside the bag like a glove. Such an ugly shroud. I tried to jostle the bag slightly so the bat wouldn't be on its back as it waited to die.
I nudged it with my toe, and it gave a crackling hiss, feebly twisted its angular wings. It was clearly injured, and angry. I wanted either to gently scoot it out of the way or to kill it bloodlessly. I touched it again with my boot, to make sure it wasn't going to suddenly spring into flight. It hissed again. I would have been afraid if I were a small animal, and as it was, I felt so unsettled by this bat, even though I knew it couldn't hurt me, that I left it where it was and went up to the office.
Someone took a box down, turned it over the bat and pushed it off to the side. Later, after a call to Animal Control ("What I'm gonna need for you to do is to put it in a plastic bag"), I found a Dollar Tree bag and a vague determination to be decisive. No one in the office had leather gloves.
The bat was weaker. I leaned closer and saw its tiny pointed ears and flat nose shaped like the roof of a pagoda. Its wings and pillowy body were crushed indeterminately together. This flying mammal: how different from me. It turned its head back toward me, just barely, and gave a hiss more like a sigh.
It took me three or four tries to grab the small bundle of its body without flinching, my hand inside the bag like a glove. Such an ugly shroud. I tried to jostle the bag slightly so the bat wouldn't be on its back as it waited to die.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
No Returns
Last fall as I drove down M- Ave. under the yellow and red maples backlit by afternoon sun, I passed a hearse waiting to enter the street from the parking lot of a church. It pulled out behind me, then two blocks later, a different hearse crossed the street in front of me.
"A hearse in front, a hearse behind," I thought, and it sounded so good that I wrote it down on the back of a receipt at the next stoplight. It was an easy lyric to let flit through the air, what with all the sunshine and autumnal color.
I rarely think about death, not even my parents', and I'm not going to now. I'm glad that hearses pass by on our public roads, so I can remember death without having to consider it. But I have kept the receipt.
"A hearse in front, a hearse behind," I thought, and it sounded so good that I wrote it down on the back of a receipt at the next stoplight. It was an easy lyric to let flit through the air, what with all the sunshine and autumnal color.
I rarely think about death, not even my parents', and I'm not going to now. I'm glad that hearses pass by on our public roads, so I can remember death without having to consider it. But I have kept the receipt.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Why I Like My Neighborhood
1. People plant vegetables in their front yards, in the space between the sidewalk and the street, in little patches by the back gate, in pots and empty lots. Today I saw a cucumber vine slinking between the pre-fab shrubs in front of the new houses on C- St.
2. I get a neighborhood discount at the barber shop.
3. I can learn neighborhood news while sitting in the leopard-print barber chair that says "KRAKEN" on the footrest.
4. When we show movies or whatever's on GOL TV on the side of our house from our neighbor's front porch (using a projector M has borrowed from his work) and a couple of us drag porch chairs out to the alley to watch, no one complains. Passersby stop, watch a few minutes, chat, and then go on walking their dogs.
5. Coming or going, people are always happy on the quarter-mile walk between here and the river. I love seeing the energy in the steps of people on their way to the river, and the satisfied, sun-burnished faces of people on their way back.
6. There's more, but I'm going for a walk. I love the thought that even at 10:30 at night, people will be sitting with friends on their front porches.
2. I get a neighborhood discount at the barber shop.
3. I can learn neighborhood news while sitting in the leopard-print barber chair that says "KRAKEN" on the footrest.
4. When we show movies or whatever's on GOL TV on the side of our house from our neighbor's front porch (using a projector M has borrowed from his work) and a couple of us drag porch chairs out to the alley to watch, no one complains. Passersby stop, watch a few minutes, chat, and then go on walking their dogs.
5. Coming or going, people are always happy on the quarter-mile walk between here and the river. I love seeing the energy in the steps of people on their way to the river, and the satisfied, sun-burnished faces of people on their way back.
6. There's more, but I'm going for a walk. I love the thought that even at 10:30 at night, people will be sitting with friends on their front porches.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
And Louis Armstrong was singing beside the zucchini
On Sunday evening we picked blackberries in the park across the street and I baked them into scones the next morning. I felt the most appallingly Hallmarkian glow of contentment at the thought of living in a city where I can do this.
Furthermore, on Tuesday, 2 and I biked to the new farmer's market, not five blocks from our house, where vendors set up stands under colorful tents in a lot next to a well-tended community garden... and wait! there's more!
In the middle of this garden there grows an enormous mulberry tree, under which is arranged a semi-circle of straw bales covered with checkered tablecloths. Every market day at 4:30, a neighborhood mother with a real! English accent reads a Beatrix Potter book amid the bales. As soon as we arrived at the market, 2 put on a gauzy bit up dress-up fluff from the play tent and held the hand of the Book Mother to walk into the garden.
What did you expect? Of course the sky was azure and the clouds symmetrical!
Furthermore, on Tuesday, 2 and I biked to the new farmer's market, not five blocks from our house, where vendors set up stands under colorful tents in a lot next to a well-tended community garden... and wait! there's more!
In the middle of this garden there grows an enormous mulberry tree, under which is arranged a semi-circle of straw bales covered with checkered tablecloths. Every market day at 4:30, a neighborhood mother with a real! English accent reads a Beatrix Potter book amid the bales. As soon as we arrived at the market, 2 put on a gauzy bit up dress-up fluff from the play tent and held the hand of the Book Mother to walk into the garden.
What did you expect? Of course the sky was azure and the clouds symmetrical!
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Night Whistle
Down by the river, a train burdens itself with the melancholy wishes of insomniacs. Empty of coal, heading back toward the mountains, it moves along the rails, its horn calling the night thoughts of the city to tumble into its hollow cars.
Along the dark passageway of the tracks, farther west where the trees are bigger, the grit-crust shakes loose from the coal cars and leaves a black trail. By morning, it has blown back to the city.
Along the dark passageway of the tracks, farther west where the trees are bigger, the grit-crust shakes loose from the coal cars and leaves a black trail. By morning, it has blown back to the city.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Smoke-filled rooms are bad for the editorial vision
Last month, The Washington Post Magazine ran a story about superstar violinist Joshua Bell's gig in a Metro station. In brief: Would morning commuters be stopped in their tracks by the music of Bach et al. played by the nation's most prominent violinist? No.
The article by Gene Weingarten is interesting, though written in an overblown glossy-mag style:
The violin is an instrument that is said to be much like the human voice, and in this musician's masterly hands, it sobbed and laughed and sang -- ecstatic, sorrowful, importuning, adoring, flirtatious, castigating, playful, romancing, merry, triumphal, sumptuous.
So, what do you think happened?
HANG ON, WE'LL GET YOU SOME EXPERT HELP.
He touches on the nature and purpose of beauty (always an interesting question for me, though I rarely, if ever, consider what Leibniz or Kant have to say about it; Weingarten managed to work them--and Plato and Hume--into the piece) and reports on several later conversations with communters who agreed to be interviewed for the article.
But the paragraph that stopped me in my own tracks was this:
In preparing for this event, editors at The Post Magazine discussed how to deal with likely outcomes. The most widely held assumption was that there could well be a problem with crowd control: In a demographic as sophisticated as Washington, the thinking went, several people would surely recognize Bell. Nervous "what-if" scenarios abounded. As people gathered, what if others stopped just to see what the attraction was? Word would spread through the crowd. Cameras would flash. More people flock to the scene; rush-hour pedestrian traffic backs up;....
(I left off the end of the final sentence, as it was clearly meant to be hyperbole.)
...In other words, these editors saw the city as populated by people pretty much just like themselves. They had no idea who really walked through that Metro station. No conception of a world outside their own spheres of awareness.
I feel like a shaft of light has singed part of my brain--a little dramatic, maybe, but think about the implications. If the people who largely control the content for major media outlets define what's significant by what they see as significant, how does that affect the way in which stories are told, and what stories get told? How does that affect who gets interviewed for stories, who gets to provide answers to reporters' questions, what the questions are?
I consider myself a healthily skeptical person, yet I used to think that by and large, editors and journalists honestly tried to approach things objectively--I suppose I still think that they do try. But this is such a revealing glimpse inside the editor's office.
But wait... yes, it's true: I am an editor. That's the other reason I can't let go of this paragraph. I know I'm guilty of this same solipsistic error. I justify it by thinking, "Well, I don't really know who the readers are, so I might as well make papers that I'd want to read." Or: "With 50,000 readers, there are bound to be a few who appreciate my editorial decisions." Or: "Writing is best when the author writes to a specific reader." (I sort of believe this, but not necessarily for journalism, even though once I did hear this point made in a workshop for journalists.)
But those are excuses for laziness. I always need to be asking myself: how is the world bigger than I realize?
The article by Gene Weingarten is interesting, though written in an overblown glossy-mag style:
The violin is an instrument that is said to be much like the human voice, and in this musician's masterly hands, it sobbed and laughed and sang -- ecstatic, sorrowful, importuning, adoring, flirtatious, castigating, playful, romancing, merry, triumphal, sumptuous.
So, what do you think happened?
HANG ON, WE'LL GET YOU SOME EXPERT HELP.
He touches on the nature and purpose of beauty (always an interesting question for me, though I rarely, if ever, consider what Leibniz or Kant have to say about it; Weingarten managed to work them--and Plato and Hume--into the piece) and reports on several later conversations with communters who agreed to be interviewed for the article.
But the paragraph that stopped me in my own tracks was this:
In preparing for this event, editors at The Post Magazine discussed how to deal with likely outcomes. The most widely held assumption was that there could well be a problem with crowd control: In a demographic as sophisticated as Washington, the thinking went, several people would surely recognize Bell. Nervous "what-if" scenarios abounded. As people gathered, what if others stopped just to see what the attraction was? Word would spread through the crowd. Cameras would flash. More people flock to the scene; rush-hour pedestrian traffic backs up;....
(I left off the end of the final sentence, as it was clearly meant to be hyperbole.)
...In other words, these editors saw the city as populated by people pretty much just like themselves. They had no idea who really walked through that Metro station. No conception of a world outside their own spheres of awareness.
I feel like a shaft of light has singed part of my brain--a little dramatic, maybe, but think about the implications. If the people who largely control the content for major media outlets define what's significant by what they see as significant, how does that affect the way in which stories are told, and what stories get told? How does that affect who gets interviewed for stories, who gets to provide answers to reporters' questions, what the questions are?
I consider myself a healthily skeptical person, yet I used to think that by and large, editors and journalists honestly tried to approach things objectively--I suppose I still think that they do try. But this is such a revealing glimpse inside the editor's office.
But wait... yes, it's true: I am an editor. That's the other reason I can't let go of this paragraph. I know I'm guilty of this same solipsistic error. I justify it by thinking, "Well, I don't really know who the readers are, so I might as well make papers that I'd want to read." Or: "With 50,000 readers, there are bound to be a few who appreciate my editorial decisions." Or: "Writing is best when the author writes to a specific reader." (I sort of believe this, but not necessarily for journalism, even though once I did hear this point made in a workshop for journalists.)
But those are excuses for laziness. I always need to be asking myself: how is the world bigger than I realize?
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
With a capital S
It's spring and the edges of buildings look crisper, the colors cleaner. 78 degrees. I feel a tickle of pride when the guy on WCLM says "...right here in the capital city." Yes, it is a capital city.
The birds are proud, too. I didn't realize I missed them in the mornings until they began singing again. On S- St., A woodpecker surprised me with enormous sound, but when I watched and watched to catch it in the act of hammering--can it be true that a small bird and an old tree makes such a resounding racket?--it just hopped around the branches looking for insects.
Driving east, toward the sun, I saw a man toss his spit in a silken ribbon on the street. I spent four hours at the coffee shop banging through the April calendar and my car didn't get ticketed. As the sun went down, I played soccer in borrowed shoes. They were wrapped with duct tape around the ball of the foot and a teammate said I looked "bad-ass." Didn't help much, but we had fun.
This is the first day in months that I've felt so at peace with my life... though peace isn't really the word I want. I don't feel pacific. Actually, I feel aroused by life; that's what it is. But to say more would require reflection on the months past.
Letters of E. B. White (a reminder to self to check book out from library)
Library: A few weeks ago I took 1 and a friend to a branch library, one I had not visited for several years. Even though this branch is more convenient to our daily paths than the main library, I avoid it because the children's librarian there brings out the absolute stark raving misanthrope in me.
She calls me "ma'am" and I want to grab her upper arm, dig in my fingertips in the fleshy underpart and hiss inarticulately. (This is a woman who lives in my neighboorhood, not 3 blocks from my house.) There are other reasons, but this is the one I had forgotten: within 10 minutes of my entering, she approaches me with a book and tape case I returned three years ago and asks me if I've found the cassette yet. A little yellow sticky note with my name is affixed to the cover, still. Possibly she hears the repressed fury in my voice--I try to sound reasonable as I explain again that the cassette was in the case when I returned it, admittedly to the wrong branch, three years ago--and she backs away quickly. (The backing away part is not unusual; she's the kind of person who keeps talking, smarmily, as she backs away from one, so as to always have the last word. The quickly part was unusual.)
I wait a few seconds. After all, I don't want to appear petulant. Then I slam my magazine shut and gather up the girls and leave. Quickly.
The birds are proud, too. I didn't realize I missed them in the mornings until they began singing again. On S- St., A woodpecker surprised me with enormous sound, but when I watched and watched to catch it in the act of hammering--can it be true that a small bird and an old tree makes such a resounding racket?--it just hopped around the branches looking for insects.
Driving east, toward the sun, I saw a man toss his spit in a silken ribbon on the street. I spent four hours at the coffee shop banging through the April calendar and my car didn't get ticketed. As the sun went down, I played soccer in borrowed shoes. They were wrapped with duct tape around the ball of the foot and a teammate said I looked "bad-ass." Didn't help much, but we had fun.
This is the first day in months that I've felt so at peace with my life... though peace isn't really the word I want. I don't feel pacific. Actually, I feel aroused by life; that's what it is. But to say more would require reflection on the months past.
Letters of E. B. White (a reminder to self to check book out from library)
Library: A few weeks ago I took 1 and a friend to a branch library, one I had not visited for several years. Even though this branch is more convenient to our daily paths than the main library, I avoid it because the children's librarian there brings out the absolute stark raving misanthrope in me.
She calls me "ma'am" and I want to grab her upper arm, dig in my fingertips in the fleshy underpart and hiss inarticulately. (This is a woman who lives in my neighboorhood, not 3 blocks from my house.) There are other reasons, but this is the one I had forgotten: within 10 minutes of my entering, she approaches me with a book and tape case I returned three years ago and asks me if I've found the cassette yet. A little yellow sticky note with my name is affixed to the cover, still. Possibly she hears the repressed fury in my voice--I try to sound reasonable as I explain again that the cassette was in the case when I returned it, admittedly to the wrong branch, three years ago--and she backs away quickly. (The backing away part is not unusual; she's the kind of person who keeps talking, smarmily, as she backs away from one, so as to always have the last word. The quickly part was unusual.)
I wait a few seconds. After all, I don't want to appear petulant. Then I slam my magazine shut and gather up the girls and leave. Quickly.
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Hot ... Now
On impulse, I stopped by the donut shop yesterday, shortly after 2 p.m., meaning to quickly get a donut and leave.
When I stepped through the doors, the burgeoning heat of afternoon sun through all the windows and heat still radiating from the now-quiet ovens slowed me down. I saw that everything was slow.
Behind the counter, a man mopped the same tiles over and over, in long flat oval pushes of a mop. The women in front of me in line carefully read the signs listing the price of donuts, and read them again. One of them asked a question about the price of donuts. The clerk listened, then thought about his answer.
When at last he brought the boxes of doughnuts to the woman, his mouth turned up ever so slightly at the corners in a slow smile. The smell of doughnuts, like a boa, wound around my throat and I was breathless. The doughnuts on trays beneath the glass case became, almost imperceptibly, browner.
I paid for my purchase in exact change and laid the coins into the palm of the clerk in separate piles, dimes and quarters. His skin was warm and dry. I folded the top of my doughnut bag one more time and left.
When I stepped through the doors, the burgeoning heat of afternoon sun through all the windows and heat still radiating from the now-quiet ovens slowed me down. I saw that everything was slow.
Behind the counter, a man mopped the same tiles over and over, in long flat oval pushes of a mop. The women in front of me in line carefully read the signs listing the price of donuts, and read them again. One of them asked a question about the price of donuts. The clerk listened, then thought about his answer.
When at last he brought the boxes of doughnuts to the woman, his mouth turned up ever so slightly at the corners in a slow smile. The smell of doughnuts, like a boa, wound around my throat and I was breathless. The doughnuts on trays beneath the glass case became, almost imperceptibly, browner.
I paid for my purchase in exact change and laid the coins into the palm of the clerk in separate piles, dimes and quarters. His skin was warm and dry. I folded the top of my doughnut bag one more time and left.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Fool Service
This southern city has two indoor ice rinks, but this post is not about ice rinks. Maybe some other day I'll write about the absurdity of a building full of cold, or maybe that's plenty said already.
This post is about how I was driving 1 and 2 and a friend of 1 to the ice rink on the north side of town when I rashly decided to try to find my way to the ice rink on the south side of town.
I had never been to this rink before, but I could see from the address written on a coupon (burning a hole in my supremely middle-class Entertainment Book) that it was sort of close to something I might know the location of. Goaded on by protestations from the back seat--changed plans grate horribly on the nerves of my children--I pulled a u-turn and made a right onto a road that at least initially went in the direction I wanted.
After about 5 minutes, I lost my nerve and, seeing a highway number for something going north, I yanked the wheel right and sped up the ramp, hoping--trusting!--that I would soon see another sign telling me what road I was on. (Roads might be numbered, but everyone here calls them by their local names.)
Instead, I came upon a toll-booth and in the approach I realized that I had less than 50 cents in the entire car. What am I going to do? The girls are dithering in the back. What does anyone do? Will the attendant make me call home and have someone deliver 50 cents to me? Is there some sort of secret driveway that they'll let me slip down as long as I promise to return whence I came and never do this again? Do they take credit cards?
The hundredths of a mile are ticking by, the tollbooths are looming, I'm fumbling in my purse. I have 1 quarter and five pennies and my mind is counting off the words I should use as I pull up to the last slot on the right.
I began my apology and sensed right away that the attendant was fed up: "How much do you have," without even rolling her eyes, which might have been taken as a sign of commiseration. 1 called from the back, "Look on the ground!" and I made a show of peering over the edge of the door.
"There's nothing out there." She took my 30 cents without taking her eyes from mine. With some tollbooth-attendant sleight-of-hand magic, she pulled something from her back pocket, strained out the pennies and tossed two quarters into the basket. I knew it was two quarters because the only moment her eyes left mine to put the pennies in her till, I glanced over at the display as the coins tumbled in.
"Thank you," I said. Maybe I wasn't grateful enough--I admit the thought crossed my mind that the second quarter was a misguided one she herself had picked off the ground earlier--but I was truly relieved. She continued staring at me, never smiling, just a little flick of scorn? anger? at the side of her mouth. I drove away.
This post is about how I was driving 1 and 2 and a friend of 1 to the ice rink on the north side of town when I rashly decided to try to find my way to the ice rink on the south side of town.
I had never been to this rink before, but I could see from the address written on a coupon (burning a hole in my supremely middle-class Entertainment Book) that it was sort of close to something I might know the location of. Goaded on by protestations from the back seat--changed plans grate horribly on the nerves of my children--I pulled a u-turn and made a right onto a road that at least initially went in the direction I wanted.
After about 5 minutes, I lost my nerve and, seeing a highway number for something going north, I yanked the wheel right and sped up the ramp, hoping--trusting!--that I would soon see another sign telling me what road I was on. (Roads might be numbered, but everyone here calls them by their local names.)
Instead, I came upon a toll-booth and in the approach I realized that I had less than 50 cents in the entire car. What am I going to do? The girls are dithering in the back. What does anyone do? Will the attendant make me call home and have someone deliver 50 cents to me? Is there some sort of secret driveway that they'll let me slip down as long as I promise to return whence I came and never do this again? Do they take credit cards?
The hundredths of a mile are ticking by, the tollbooths are looming, I'm fumbling in my purse. I have 1 quarter and five pennies and my mind is counting off the words I should use as I pull up to the last slot on the right.
I began my apology and sensed right away that the attendant was fed up: "How much do you have," without even rolling her eyes, which might have been taken as a sign of commiseration. 1 called from the back, "Look on the ground!" and I made a show of peering over the edge of the door.
"There's nothing out there." She took my 30 cents without taking her eyes from mine. With some tollbooth-attendant sleight-of-hand magic, she pulled something from her back pocket, strained out the pennies and tossed two quarters into the basket. I knew it was two quarters because the only moment her eyes left mine to put the pennies in her till, I glanced over at the display as the coins tumbled in.
"Thank you," I said. Maybe I wasn't grateful enough--I admit the thought crossed my mind that the second quarter was a misguided one she herself had picked off the ground earlier--but I was truly relieved. She continued staring at me, never smiling, just a little flick of scorn? anger? at the side of her mouth. I drove away.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Through a glass
Today was one of those days--frequent, for me, a worker-from-home--that I saw no one other than the people who transport or care for my children. It rained all day, with little wind. I kept the front door open. When the trash truck came, I wondered if the workers even noticed the stench from our neighbor's can, the one into which he dumped the contents of his fridge before he moved. Other than that, I didn't think about other people in any kind of sensual, experiential way. The few phone conversations I had were brief and boring.
After supper, we drove to a bookstore and I was startled to see faces behind the windshields of other cars, glimpses of people with dark hair, people glancing down at their radios, people talking to their passengers.
People in cars give the world the unknowing gift of their intimate gestures. Sometimes I can't believe I exist, until I see the motion of another person, a person who doesn't know I'm watching. I don't understand this, but it's true.
After supper, we drove to a bookstore and I was startled to see faces behind the windshields of other cars, glimpses of people with dark hair, people glancing down at their radios, people talking to their passengers.
People in cars give the world the unknowing gift of their intimate gestures. Sometimes I can't believe I exist, until I see the motion of another person, a person who doesn't know I'm watching. I don't understand this, but it's true.
Friday, June 9, 2006
The Public-Private Continuum
"Good morning!" says Mr. B- as I walk back from the school bus stop this morning at 8:30. I've got a cup of coffee in my hand, he has a can of Miller Lite. His voice always surprises me. It's a mid-range, well-tempered voice, reasonable and kind. But I've overheard snatches of thinly veiled racist--or at least xenophobic--conversation with the other men on that stretch of block.
I don't know what these guys do. Most are not old enough to be retired; most appear hale enough to not be on disability... though one can never tell. They lean on the window-frames of each others' 12-year-old cars, drive small loads of discarded household goods from one street to another, talk neighborhood politics--the old kind, about people; not the new kind about historic designation and housing in-fill and clean-up days.
Mr. B-'s greeting interrupts and caps my catalog of sounds I had been compiling as I walked:
1. The high "ping" of a real bell. A kitchen timer for someone's toast, maybe, singing out the front door into the world. This is why I love the city; the borders between private and public break down, but not usually so much as to be disturbing.
2. Blue jay scolding a cat.
3. Homeless itinerant workers having a breakfast of cigarettes in the alley. Their itinerancy is in question, as they've lived in our neighborhood's alleys for over a year now.
4. City bus roaring down P- St.
5. Robins
6. Whiny snargle of an ancient minivan engine warming up.
7. Scrape of a front door closing as the dark-haired girl goes to work.
8. "Good morning"
I don't know what these guys do. Most are not old enough to be retired; most appear hale enough to not be on disability... though one can never tell. They lean on the window-frames of each others' 12-year-old cars, drive small loads of discarded household goods from one street to another, talk neighborhood politics--the old kind, about people; not the new kind about historic designation and housing in-fill and clean-up days.
Mr. B-'s greeting interrupts and caps my catalog of sounds I had been compiling as I walked:
1. The high "ping" of a real bell. A kitchen timer for someone's toast, maybe, singing out the front door into the world. This is why I love the city; the borders between private and public break down, but not usually so much as to be disturbing.
2. Blue jay scolding a cat.
3. Homeless itinerant workers having a breakfast of cigarettes in the alley. Their itinerancy is in question, as they've lived in our neighborhood's alleys for over a year now.
4. City bus roaring down P- St.
5. Robins
6. Whiny snargle of an ancient minivan engine warming up.
7. Scrape of a front door closing as the dark-haired girl goes to work.
8. "Good morning"
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