On the corner of Edgcumbe and Juliet, this means observing a world full of baby strollers and shirtless thirteen-year-old skaters, a world where leaving your puppy's poo on the communal grass is a very naughty act.
A man walks by with an ancient German shepherd. how long, i wonder, has he owned that dog? what has the dog seen? He'll never tell.
A girl walks by, twitching and smiling to herself, motioning and muttering. She's maybe twelve. She breaks into a sprint for about ten yards, her stringy, waist-length blond hair spreading behind her. I look askance at first as she circles the block. what the heck? then my conscience reminds me of my own extreme introversion and shyness as a kid. She is wrapped warmly in her own imaginings. Whether they are an escape from some private, unpleasant reality or just the amusements of a solitary girl I'll likely never know.
There is this one fellow who is always swinging. Not the fifteen minute stint of most kids, but hours of rhythmic flying, earbuds snug in his ears, long, straight brown hair dancing with his swinging.
I rather envied him the first time I observed the swinging. I should like to know what he listens to. Many a pleasant hour of my own existence has been spent alone, absorbing soundwaves while knitting, drawing, biking nowhere in particular at night. (Mom hated that.) it can look like the darkly anti-social habits of an unlikeable kid, when really it's just the untangling of knots. Mental twists and turns bleeding out your ears as the music thuds in.
More power to you, swing kid. Listen on.
thus go the long, delicious days of the porchsitters.
-Gyp
