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Life, actually…
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DEEP BREATHING DOWN SOUTH
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At this moment, on this semi-sunny day, my lifelong village is teeming with sound and motion and color and laughter and rage. It seems to happen all at once, this teeming of souls and cultures.
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I find that taking notes is a sort of Calling. I love memorizing snapshot moments such as this one. Later, once alone with scrapbook mind and sharpened pencil, I can review split second after split second. I can sort it out to see what might have been missed.
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Here’s what I see when I take time to pause and breathe.
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One stocking-capped hunched figure pulls a mottled wheeled suitcase down the middle of the street. All belongings seem clustered and closely held.
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A lone drifter walks through the nearby parking lot, ground-focused and ignoring nearby swirling lives.
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A driver stands beside her filling-stationed car as it sucks petrol from a pump. She dabs at her palmed phone.
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When I activate an adjacent pump a loud video springs forth images of a kid punching things aggressively and screaming all kinds of acting-out energy. I quickly poke the Sharpie-marked tab that silences this intrusion. I find silence as catch can.
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Seconds later I pass a neighborhood convenience store, the convenience store that appears to be eternally closed and dark. There is no A-frame sign announcing life within. Who can tell this tomb is teeming?
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An abandoned florist building speeds past. On its walls are murals of angels and crosses and flowers fading, fading, fading…awaiting fate and wrecking crews that will dissolve its memory. It will be replaced by a sun-occluding tower.
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There are other murals to see as this moment chases the next moment.
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Images of a golden lightning statue, a large water tank, a skyline with blue-tinged clouds, jazz musicians in joyful postures, and a deep blue sky, and an evaporating ad sign from another age.
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Pedestrians scrunch down against the wind and dodge swooshing vehicles.
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High heels click smartly past, munching snackers wipe their chins, panhandlers scan the hordes for easy pickings, energetic young’uns hop, jaded executives plod…all cruise their destinies in plain view.
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Is this just my town? Are the deep-breathing split seconds different where you are right now? Is each memory worthy of attention?
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These thoughts bump into each other in plain sight. I feel guilty when attention is not paid.
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Among the many promises I make to myself, I promise to more deeply appreciate the swirl. I promise to capture moments otherwise destined for the spam file, the trash box.
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With luck and focus I might even manage to keep a promise or two.
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Once in a while
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© Jim Reed 2023 A.D.
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