Friday, June 01, 2007

Moment

I noticed the curve of the sidewalk and thought it seemed like a cheerful curve, a happy curve, and at the same time rebuffed myself for anthropomorphing (is that the right word? used correctly?) the sidewalk. I noticed the curve of the sidewalk as I stepped off of it to let the man walk past me, step-step shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. His jacket -- thin, dark blue, indicated his allegiance to an organization -- hung from his shoulders and swayed a bit as he step-step shuffled his way toward the building.
The grass where I stepped to make more room was soft, cushiony, and my thoughts jumped to sod and grass seed and rain gauges and errands I was running and the pending rain that was starting to fall, lightly and without conviction. The rain, like the sidewalk, not especially in need of the human attributes I was assigning, but they were working for me.
I stepped back onto the sidewalk, the man having passed, and I paused in my mind to be thrilled at sharing the building behind me with old men, immigrant families, students. My canvas bag bounced against my hip, my self-pride at having remembered it tempered only by its necessity to leave the house.
My car was warm when I threw the bag on the side seat, knocking my lunch out of its wrapper, the remains of the energy bar (my second of the day, a sad substitute for a rain check lunch) crumbling as I picked it up. The heat had softened it, warmed the cherries, made it vaguely reminiscent of pie -- if I closed my eyes and breathed deeply.

3 comments:

PPB said...

nice.

Anonymous said...

What a beautiful writer!

Dorcas (aka SingingOwl) said...

Seems you are feeling better?
I hope I join you, and all, in Minnesota at the FOH next year.