On the Most Interesting Thing in the World

At this time the cares of my life are keeping me close to home so that my public life is on hiatus. Actually some days my most important decision is what to fix for dinner. Therefore I have time and opportunity to see things I have only glanced at for years. Maybe when I was very young and life was new I noticed it all, but certainly not for a very long time. Now I have questions, many, varied, reflective; some are deep (Are her wrinkles simply the effects of gravity or the heralds of a life filled with joys, cares and demands?...His knobbly knuckles, do they hurt as much as they look like they should, or has he set aside the outrage of arthritis?...That smooth-faced child, does a peaceful childhood lie ahead or will a sudden leap into unwary adulthood disrupt everything?) Some questions are trivial (When did it become fashionable to have every bare spot of skin adorned with a tattoo?...How is it possible to wear such tight pants?)

A community of hills...

Because there is little else we can physically do right now, my husband and I often drive the graceful, upward-arching streets that are characteristic of a community of hills. Can these vistas ever become commonplace, even to those who see them every day? How can they when every sunrise is different than the last, each shuttering sunset a harbinger of another dawn? They are adventures, complete within themselves, all on display for the most interesting things in the world,... the people who make their homes on the landscapes or walk the streets, bridges and byways of our small city. These are the greatest gifts of all…vigorous, frantic, dispirited human beings, seeing all or maybe blind to everything. They are old before their time and forever youthful. Who can get enough of these shape shifters…happy one minute, in despair the next.

Too enmeshed...

How could I have not seen all that was passing before my eyes? Too busy, I suppose, too enmeshed within my own boundaries. All these years I have become more because others have lived and set their footprints on the pathways of my life, and they have become more because of me.

I will not forget again…

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