support your local mom & pop
info
| |||
| i am a different drummer support your local mom & pop | info | |
| |||
| Sitting in Frankling Square and smelling Vinnie's... two palm frond roses next to me from Gregory ("for a pretty lady"), who works for smiles and is meanwhile more than compensated by tips. He handed me one and I had to ask how he did it. "Would you like to watch me make one?" "I'd love to." So I do, and he explains, such that theoretically I could try my own hand at it -- but not now... no palm fronds handy, for one thing... This after some wandering. I go to the beach first this afternoon, but so bright (and I have no sunglasses) I don't stroll very long... just listen to the waves and commune, watch my feet (in Sarah's sandals) tread sand and shells, broken by time and energetic waves, pounding artifacts into grit. Probably blinding people with my shirt off, hanging from back pocket of black corduroys, rolled up to mid-calf. Then again, on my arm is a face and this its first exposure to Atlantic sound and smell. From there back downtown, where I find the Radisson and see my friend's foot hanging over the ledge, ropes wiggling. Soon he drops over, looks down as I look up and we smile and yell at each other over sound of Bay Street traffic and six stories. "I'll be on the ground in 15 minutes!" I cross Bay and watch with better perspective as he swings and scrubs and squeegees, feet clinging to this and that, sometimes using suction cups to stay put. I watch him do that stripe of windows for a while, hunt down an overpriced Hawaiian Punch, hear some German and kinda want to say "Sind Sie auf Deutschland?" Aber, nein. I get my beverage and stroll back to watch him finish and cross Bay again in time to see him float to the ground. He's working, of course, so I let him continue and ramble on myself. Still know my old haunt, wind up checking out what was the Paper Moon, where so many words were scratched out long ago. Now it's a 'smoothie' place -- I get a good coffee-chocolate-yogurt thing and meander back toward City Market. Along the way, of course, hook up a guy with a smoke and some change. His belt was a necktie, shirt unbuttoned, and while I neglected to put anything on this morning to make myself smell better, he smells worse... but I can't really mind. Wind up here in the square. Give a guy a light, seemingly homeless, but in his stack of stuff (in plastic bags, just like I packed for vacation) is a Holy Bible and I wonder just how homeless some of these guys are. Not long after is when Gregory came along. Saw him down here Sunday as well, but there was more going on, more people around and I stayed in the shade and shadows, feeling like I'd eaten too much. I had. Family wonders, I think, but oh well. Pigeon wanders a few feet from me now, eyeing everything and pecking here and there... I wonder if it smells Vinnie's too and wonder if it would even smell good to a pigeon... "Beautiful people," Gregory said... everywhere. All the ladies pretty, no matter the shapes and sizes and I nod, smiling in the shade later, watching them pass by, families with strollers and water bottles and cameras and bags. Students with wallets on chains and totebags on arms. More homeless perfectly at home here. A beautiful world of beautiful people, if you've got eyes to see and affirm that reality, to confirm God's goodness despite the grime on our faces, hands and feet. We may yet bloom into hand-crafted roses, but would we cringe if God worked from the streets with fewer teeth than average, with a smile nonetheless? Focus. We really don't have a choice and it's not a matter of lenses or bifocals, just a choice every second as to what we'll see and say. |
| ||
| next next will be next view reactions |
1054 reactions | A completely random page from peasoapluv |
| ||
| login or register group pages react to page | Jump to another page | |
| 19:38 <@minuteman> the theater that is irc boggles some minuteman | ||
Powered by WhoNose Static link: http://www.paperlove.org/?bid=131 | ||