things i saw

three girls

~ carin ~ 4 Comments

So I walked to the library.

And inside, the first thing I see, a girl, maybe five or six, in a red dress with big black polka dots, skip, skip, skipping, towards the kiddie book section—arms overhead and long blonde pony tails bouncing and swinging from side to side, unbridled as her joy.

On the way home, a girl, maybe fifteen, in cutoff shorts and tiny tee-shirt. Long brown hair, tied back, exposing round, freckled face and big smile. An apple-cheeked, wholesome Daisy Duke. She delivers newspapers in a wooden wagon and as I walk past she says Hello! in this way that feels like she’s actually happy to see me. Some people can do that. Some people can be fifteen and beautiful and not know it, and make being a paper girl who hauls around an old wagon seem like a very enviable thing.

Around the corner, an old girl. Maybe eighty. Maybe more. Grey hair, wavy, cut in a bob, shoulders hunched forward like a parenthesis, as if it’s been a long time since her back was straight. Comes out of one of the swanky houses that abutt the ravine. She’s in smart trousers and a light khaki jacket with a Burberry collar, black patent leather flats. She walks toward the dead-end of the street; I assume she’s off to visit a neighbour for tea or a few hands of bridge. But no. She walks to the end, then pauses, turns back and walks home. All in perfectly polished patent leather pumps.

in the neighbourhood

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

A guy walking his dog doesn’t normally get my attention. I can’t say why this one does except that I’m pretty sure it’s the guy from around the corner who lives alone since his wife moved out, whose dog is always howling because it never gets walked, at least not on this street. And the way he’s walking. One foot in front of the other at a regular pace, sometimes looking up, sometimes not—all very ordinary. Yet. There’s something. It doesn’t feel like an ordinary walk, it feels like something has changed, or is is about to change, like he’s walking at this end of the street because he’s lived around the corner for ten years and is kind of sorry he’s never talked to anyone, or walked his poor howling dog more often. Like he wants to see what he’s been stupidly ignoring all this time. Maybe he’s decided to change his ways and this is the beginning of a new habit; maybe he’s looking for someone to say hello to.
But it doesn’t feel like a beginning.
It feels like a goodbye walk.
I forget about it for the rest of the day.
I go out.
And when I come home, as I turn the corner, I see a For Sale sign on his lawn.
Whatever the circumstance, whatever his deal, I can’t help feeling a little sorry I didn’t go out to say hello when he passed by…

*

Grandchildren visit next door and the grandma (a dear woman who feeds the neighbourhood stray and whose husband built it a beautiful shelter on their deck, complete with sheepskin blankets and insulation done to code) shouts her happiness across the front lawn. Later the youngest plays basketball on the driveway, bouncing the ball more than shooting, while a girl does cartwheels on the grass.

*

The lad across the road is all grown up now. Must be nearing thirty. He lives elsewhere but comes home often and today he and a few pals bring out the nets and sticks and play some ball hockey, just like they’ve been doing for the past twenty years. Just like no time at all has passed.

*

The new people next to the ball hockey crowd have kids so young they ride bikes with bright orange training wheels and in the morning the boy stands at the edge of his lawn, facing the street and chirps loudly like a blue-toqued, green-sneakered rare bird and I’m reminded again of the genius of kids. And wonder when we lose the impulse to greet the day with a song only the wildlife will understand.

things missing something

~ carin ~ Leave a comment

Twinkle lights on front yard bushes. Pretty but they seem out of place without a reason, xmas for instance, to attach themselves to—a purpose other than simple loveliness during these still dark early evenings. My, how narrow we are. I am.

A horse trailer without a horse. And in a neigh(pun not intended, but I like it)bourhood that can in no way accommodate a horse, secretly, in a backyard. Or in any way otherwise.

A bright orange wrist thingy with a whistle attached. I don’t like seeing this. Makes me wonder how it got detached from its wrist. And if it belonged to a child, when did we start making children wear whistles? And did wearing it [or worse, the need to wear it] make him/her [I suspect it was a her] feel safer or more afraid?

things i saw

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

A tiny elderly woman in a bulky red parka and too-short trousers the colour of recycling boxes, black boots, the kind you might imagine Winnie the Pooh wearing; in fact her whole look had a sort of Pooh-ish vibe about it. Grey hair fresh out of curlers. She waited in line at the Bulk Barn looking cranky as she held a ridiculously small bag of chocolates and nothing else. I wanted to say: get more… you’re only going to eat these in five minutes and then be cranky again. But then I thought, a) I don’t want to scare her and, b) maybe the whole point is running out… so she has reason to come back the next day.

Another elderly woman. Also in a checkout line. This one at the grocery store. Behind her is a young lad, tall and dark-haired, maybe fifteen. He’s buying a piece of chicken and a case of spring water. The woman ahead of him is taking forever finding precisely the right change to pay; her knobbly fingers look stiff as she fumbles with pennies and nickles. The young lad watches, laughs to himself, and I want to reach up and tap his shoulder, tell him not to be such an ass. Does he not have a grandmother? Does he not think he’ll have stiff old fingers himself one day… if he’s lucky. The cashier, a young girl, not much older than him, is patient and gracious to the woman who finally snaps shut her change purse and toddles off. The still-smirking lad is up next and when he hands the cashier his credit card, she apologizes, says they don’t take credit cards. He stammers, fumbles around in all his pockets before scraping together the cash. The smirk has faded. The cashier, bless her, is still gracious.

Another young lad. Also about fifteen. And a girl, the same age. He in baggy jeans and a long jacket; she in skin-tight leggings and a very short one. They race across a parking lot to the library. She, although much smaller, easily takes the lead as he hangs back and admires the view.

Feathers. In the backyard this morning. Always makes me sad. Dove. I’m not sure if it was neighbourhood stray or hawk; there was a hawk hanging around in the trees the other day. Do they eat doves? I wonder if it was a descendent of Orville and Wilbur, the two that were born in our wisteria who took their first wonky, tentative, zig-zaggy flight across our garden as we sat on the patio and watched. They lived among the spruce here for years. It’s always a mistake to name them.

things i saw

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

A little girl, maybe three years old in a puffy red paisley coat and checkered pants—fuchsia and green and purple—yellow boots and a pink floppy hat, rosy-cheeked and chattering, skipping alongside what might have been her grandmother, and I think how this beautiful ensemble, like kid art, can only be created before the opinions of all the wrong people begin to matter.

A homeless looking man with long greasy hair and enormous shaggy grey beard, dirty face, torn, greasy coat, sits on the floor of the library looking through a box of magazine discards; he pulls out all the Home and Garden, gets comfortable and flips through each one.

A guy in black lycra or something similar, running on the sidewalk in bare feet. True, it’s been unseasonably warm here and no one’s bare feet love sunshine more than mine but, at the very least… ouch.

heart beats and a contrail

~ carin ~ 5 Comments

Ten thousand geese fly over my house at dusk, honking madly as I set out for a walk. And the moon (and is it Venus?) hangs over a fat white contrail in the not yet completely dark sky.

I consider the heart beats, the energy above me; do they notice things like juxtapositon of moon and man made cloud?

Christmas lights are on and cars pass, faces in my direction, possibly wondering why I’m standing in the street, writing on a scrap of paper in the now almost dark.

Because of the geese, I want to say.
And Venus, if that’s what it is.
Because of the moon and… everything.

I want to say look up!
I want to point.

But the contrail has been blown away and the last of the vees has passed by. The sky has turned black leaving only the sound of the wind and tires on the road. Just the moon and maybe Venus to see— and anyone can see them anytime. No need to point.

I put away my pen and carry on walking.

solitude en masse

~ carin ~ 4 Comments

 
At the beach where I go to walk among the gulls and mutter about darlings that won’t take a hint, where I write sometimes in my car or at a picnic table if the weather allows it, or simply breathe and gather pictures, I am rarely alone.

There are the gulls of course.

Now and then joggers.

And yesterday a woman in a headscarf eating a MacDonald’s burger in her car as she read something I couldn’t see.

Maybe because the day was sunny, or maybe because of the recent holidays and all that family and turkey and Auntie So-and-So’s Marshmallow’d sweet potatoes that render even the strongest among us a little queasy but is a tradition so must be taken with a mmmmm, that sure is good, Auntie So-and-So as you try to disguise the stuff under a pyramid of wing bones—maybe because of that, there is also a man in his car next to mine, eating a whole pizza from the box on the passenger seat.

Another man, this one elderly, stares out the window of his medium sized silver sedan, one hand held in the air over his head. I consider dementia, an open-eyed cat nap with sleep paralysis, loneliness turned eccentric, but then, as he remains focused on the lake, his fingers begin to move ever so slightly, more and more until with a dramatic swoosh his whole hand is swaying back and forth, then stops—and his fingers again…fluttering, graceful. I realize he’s listening to music and I wonder if it’s on radio or CD or just in his head. I turn the ignition, flip the dial until I land on CBC 2. A symphony. I glance back at the man who is still conducting, eyes open, now closed—his movements, the pauses, the dips, the quick tilt of his hand as the violins come in, match what’s being played. It’s a long piece and gives me time to consider why he’s there. I decide it’s a solemn day, an anniversary—of what though, his wife’s birthday, their wedding, her death, the death of their first child perhaps (was that child a disappointment or a joy?); is this the date he was taken prisoner of war sixty something years ago or is it a year to the day that his wife announced she was leaving him for the guy that runs the Saturday night films at the Senior Centre?

Who knows, maybe he’s celebrating.

Later, a couple arrive in a small red truck. The man is driving. The woman’s head is down, facing her lap. When he turns off the ignition she looks up but her eyes are vacant, she could be anywhere. She stays in the truck while he gets out, lights a cigarette and walks toward a few gulls perched on a railing. He stands facing the water and I’m pretty sure I see his shoulders drop at least a few inches as he exhales.

peeping tomettery

~ carin ~ 6 Comments

I love walking in that hour just before dinner when it’s already dark but doesn’t yet feel like night and people are coming home, on foot and by car, stepping off busses, picking up kids, dragging home groceries. It’s like there’s a universal aaaahhhh in the air. I love the way windows are lit and I can see the wee slivers of life of those who don’t draw their curtains—which I assume they leave undrawn because they, too, want to see wee slivers of life outside, which occasionally includes me, walking by, looking at them, feeling a little like a peeping tomette (although I think that only applies if you actually stop walking).

Last night the sky was mostly clear with a few scudding clouds and the moon, an almost perfect half, and in the first of a row of old brick townhouses painted bright blue, I see a young man and a slightly older woman at a table in the front window, leaning back in their chairs, talking and drinking red wine from stemmed glasses.

In a low-rise apartment, an elderly woman checks her mail in the lobby, keeping the door open with her foot, then goes back inside empty-handed; I sense the length and weight of her days in the slouch of her shoulders, the shuffle of slippers.

Another woman, also elderly, sits with a tray on her lap, and a few doors along, in a house the size houses used to be, with a tiny carport and a milkbox, a couple are eating at a table with a white cloth; the woman catches my eye as I pass while her husband stares straight ahead at something else, a wall, a TV, a daydream, and just chews.

In a front yard that’s all plants and no lawn, a bench has been placed right next to the public sidewalk as if to offer a moment’s rest to those who have been a long time travelling. I think about stopping, but carry on instead.

A man sweeps his front porch and on the corner a fridge is being delivered. Or stolen.

A woman in jeans walks a stroller and a golden lab and a child skips to the front door of her house with a pink backpack ahead of a woman in stockings who moves much more slowly, locks the car door with a remote and a beep beep.

Across the road, a gate is over-grown with dried clematis and in the tiny wooden house attached, a couple sit back to back at computers as their faces shine blue in the light.

things i saw

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

A man under a blue umbrella, walking in the not-quite-sunshine of early morning.

A woman, blonde, crossing the road with a cane.

Another woman, dark haired, staring at the device in her hand while behind her walks, skips, occasionally hops, a boy too blessedly young for a device, picking what appear to be invisible plums from the air.

An abandoned barbeque, hoping for a thief with gourmand tendencies.