Madonna

I pause at the corner of 32^nd and Esmond to let a fat blue SUV pass, a masked driver at the helm. 
Why do people wear their masks in the car while driving? Is the virus floating around in their 
vehicle? Does it come in through the open windows from the air?      
It baffles me. But so much baffles me nowadays.

            Except for cats.

            I see Liv in front of her cute house, bending in her garden, puttering around. Pull my ladybug mask up over my face to show her. “Hey, Liv!” I call out, walking toward her, “What do you think? I’ve gotten lots of compliments on your ladybug mask!”

            “I’m so glad,” she chuckles. “Let me know if you need anymore. I’ve still got tons of fabric scraps.”

            “Will do,” I grin, but she can’t see it behind the mask. This is another strange thing about the current requirement to wear masks when out and about—you can’t see people’s faces. You can see their eyes. And, yes, the eyes can say a lot, but it’s strange. To hear only the muffled mumblings and not be able to see the cavity from which these mumbles originate.

            “MEEEOOOOW Meeowww! Meeeoooow!” A cobby tabby has joined us. She’s got a lot to say. And, she’s not wearing a mask.  So I can hear her clearly.

            “Why, hello!” I stoop down to pet her, glancing up at Liv, “Is it okay to pat her?”

            “Pssshaw!” Liv grins; she’s not wearing a mask. Her garden must not carry the virus.

            I stroke the tabby’s plush stripes. “What’s her name?”

            “Madonna.”            

            “Oh, that’s a good name. Hi, Madonna.”

            “Yes, she was a Teenage Mother,” Liv adds, laughing. “I got her off an ad in Nextdoor. Someone had abandoned her in an empty house. The owners had evidently left her. I got my hands into the fray, and before I knew it, instead of finding the owners, I had her back home with me. She was a young cat, but that didn’t keep her from catting around.”

            I laugh, continuing to stroke the very friendly Madonna.

            “She had 3 kittens, two of which I was able to adopt out, but the 3^rd one, can you see him in the window?”
            I glance up toward her front window, barely spying a gray tuxedo at the screen peering out. “Oh, yeah, I see him.”

            “He was just too shy. I knew that he would have issues if someone took him. So, I just kept him.”

            “What’s his name? Jesus?”

            She laughs, “No, no, he’s Felix.”

            “Perfect! Hi, Felix!” I call out to Felix but can’t see if he responds. Meanwhile, Madonna has lunged away from me, tearing after a squirrel that races up a tree. Madonna makes it halfway up and then falls back. Undaunted, she tried again. But the squirrel’s gone. Way up in the tippy-top of the pretty strawberry tree.

            Madonna falls back down after a last attempt. Promptly sits down on the sidewalk and starts to lick her butt. She has better things to do than mess with a stupid squirrel!

            Liv and I both laugh. “She’s a mighty huntress,” Liv proclaims. “But not every mission is a success.”

            “Yes, that’s the way of the world, isn’t it?”
            “Indeed,” Liv nods, a lot going on in her head I can tell. Yet she’s quiet. Not voicing whatever she may be thinking. I don’t know her well. We’ve been swimming at the Y together for years, so she’s one of my ‘swimmer friends’, but these friends do take time to get to know. And Liv is no exception.

            Madonna finishes her butt and trots over to me for more pets. I bend down to give her a final pat, “You are a mighty good tabby huntress,” I tell her. “I suppose this is because you were a teenage mother.”

            “That’s it exactly!” Liv exclaims. “I’m sure she had to hunt for food when she was locked up in that house, which I’m sure, was full of rats and mice and other vermin. She was eating for 4 so she had to hunt.”

            I nod, rising to continue my walk before the sun got too high. “Well, I better keep walking.”

            “Yes, you must.” Liv turns back to her garden, yanking at a tall filmy green stalk. Madonna goes back to sit at her side, supervising the work, before another squirrel scurries past and she is off.

             

           

           

Cigarette Lady

I’m completely distracted by the crows’ frenzied fracas on the telephone lines above me. They’re creating quite a stir. Their caw caw CAWS drawing my attention upward instead of where it usually is: ahead of me to avoid any oncoming walkers in preparation for social distancing.

            So, I don’t see her till I’m almost upon her. She’s walking down Esmond, her hair a wild tumble of dark curls, a brownish bandana round her head holding them at bay. She’s in camouflage peddle pusher lengthy pantaloons, a tight greenish mid-drift showing tank top.

            And bare feet.

            This is what I try not to stare at as she weaves toward me, after something. I’m not sure what at this point, but I greet her tentatively, “Good morning.”

            “Good morning,” she returns, a crooked smile aimed my way. She’s holding a cigarette toward me, gesturing. “Do you have….?”
            She doesn’t need to finish the question. I know she wants a ‘light’ from me. A match? A lighter? I always wonder about this custom. Cigarette smokers asking random strangers for a light. Maybe it’s part of the American culture, dating back from 40s Hollywood movies when Lauren Bacall asked Humphrey Bogart for a light. She bends her head toward him, he lights her up. To Have or Have Not: Classic.

            The asking of me always baffles me though. I’m certainly no Bogart.  Do I look like a smoker? Do I look like I’d be carrying a lighter or a pack of matches as I’m marching down 32^nd street on a Saturday morning?

             And, so I tell Cigarette Lady, “No, I don’t ….have anything….”

            She nods at me, not really expecting it? Or she would or will just keep asking anyone she meets this morning in order to get her nicotine fix?

            It’s an intense addiction. I am lucky to have never had it, but I understand addiction, at least intellectually. Unless swimming counts. For me, it is an addiction. That obsession with craving it, to have it at any cost, even if you can’t have it. It’s not a controllable behavior, is it?
            Watching Love the other night on Netflix, Gillian Jacob’s character, Micki, was trying to quit smoking. She went outside for a ‘cigarette break’ and met her cohort of fellow smokers, both of whom were puffing away. She wanted to smell the woman’s hand. The nicotine heaven of the scent. “Can I just smell your hand?” she’d asked, desperation in her voice. “Ewwww! No way….” smoker colleague had recoiled. “Please please PLEASE just let me smell your hand.” Micki had grabbed her hand, shoving her nose down into the woman’s palm to inhale the scent, while her colleague rolled her eyes. After a few seconds, Micki’s eyes closed in Nicotine Bliss, she hands her hand back to her. “Thanks for that,” she says. “I’ll be okay now.”

            It’s a funny scene. But it’s also a telling show of just how powerful an addiction smoking is. So this morning, when Cigarette Lady asks me for a light, and all I can think about are her bare feet, her unprotected midriff, her lack of any acknowledgment of social distancing---I mean, how would that have worked if I had had a light? I wouldn’t have been able to light her cigarette for her at 6 feet away. Would I have just thrown the lighter or the box of matches on the ground, backed away, watched her pick whatever I had left, till she lit her cigarette? And then, she’d just inhale, gratified and thankful. We'd both go on our way. I'd leave the matches or lighter or just tell her she could keep them. After all, they may have been contaminated by the Virus, right?

            I felt so bad for her. It was something about the incongruence of the bare feet and the hunger for nicotine that created a hole in my heart.

            I watched her continue her meander down Esmond Street. No sign that the bare feet were an impediment to travel.

            I headed up 32^nd, the echo of the crows’ cacophony still ringing in the air;  breathing in the clean morning air, I walked on.

Falling

            “Did you see I almost fell?” she calls after him, her voice fraught with anxiety and relief.

            “No,” he shouts into the air, still barreling toward me, his only mission was to intimidate me off the sidewalk, into the street. He had the right of way? Why is that? I was on the sidewalk first, striding up 32^nd street, lost in the clouds.

            They had turned the corner and headed toward me, tall and masked.  As always, I wondered who will move first in the social distancing walk-offs. A few weeks ago, The Man in the Skirt with his Shephard mix had seen me approaching. He’d tugged at his trusty mutt, guiding them both out into the street in a wide arc to give me the sidewalk. “Thanks!” I had called out. And he’d said, “Of course, you were in the lane first. I used to be a professional bus driver and that’s how it worked. If someone was already in the lane, then they had the right of way.” And, I’d chuckled, “Wow! That makes sense then that you’d move for me. It must be second nature for you.” He’d nodded, waved goodbye, but not before telling me, conspiratorially, “Well, if it hadn’t been you, I might not have moved!”  We’d both laughed as another neighbor called out to him from across the street, “Hi Bradley, how’s it going?” “Fine, just fine…” And before leaving me, he said, “You know, I own this neighborhood.”

            Yet, there was no professional bus driver etiquette going on this morning. It was full steam ahead as Masked Man barreled toward me, a few feet ahead of his female partner. Who, of course, was moving out into the street for social distancing when she almost fell. I saw her trip and my heart stopped for a moment, the image of Mr. Ian falling on our walk in Oceanside that bright afternoon a couple years ago. I had the intrepid beagle, Beau, under control. He was sniffing and sniffing and being his Beau self on the leash. But I had him—he hadn’t tripped Ian. Ian was next to me, maybe a little behind me. Talking about something. I can’t remember what. Suddenly, he tripped. I saw him stumble, not sure what was happening even as it was happening. It was in slow motion. The shock on his face. The falling forward. His arms flailing trying to keep his balance, but it was no use. Down he went. Like a tall stiff tree felled by a lumberjack’s chainsaw.  I stood there and watched in disbelief. Why is he falling? Why can’t he stop it? What can I do?

            It all happened so fast.

            Then he was on the ground, blood spewing everywhere, his head smashing on the pavement. And I screamed. Ian lay there for a moment before trying to rise, feeling his face for his glasses. Then the tirade of “Where are my glasses? Where are my glasses? I need my glasses.”

            “Ian!!!!  Are you okay? Oh my god!!!! Can you walk? We have to get you to the hospital. We can’t look for your glasses!”

            “I won’t leave without them.”

            So, I stood, helpless for a moment, before a frantic search for the glasses. Finding them after what seemed like hours, they were smashed and bent, the frames crooked, one of the lenses gone, I handed them back to him. Blood still dripping down his face, a bruise rising on his forehead.  

            “I need to find that other lens!” Ian insisted. “I won’t leave until I find it.”

            “We can’t look for it now!” I was panicked. Why won’t he come with me? Why does he need to find his glasses? Blood was dripping down his face, onto the sidewalk. The dog got busy, lapping it up.

            “Beau! Stop that!” I yanked him away, taking Ian’s arm.

            “Please, honey, please, let’s go back to Ruth’s (We were only a few blocks from my mom’s where we were spending the afternoon. Taking the dog for a walk. Eating snacks. Visiting.)

            “We have to get you to the hospital!” I was crying, panicked. Why wouldn’t he come with me? How did he fall? Why couldn’t he have caught himself?

            It truly was one of the most horrendous moments of my life, watching him fall. And it all came tumbling back to me this morning when this lady called out to her partner, “Did you see I almost fell?”

            He hadn’t. She caught herself. I breathed again, callin’ out to her. “Are you okay? We don’t need anyone falling. Not with everything going on!”

            Maybe she was smiling at me, who knows? She was wearing a mask, but I saw her nod, march on behind him. He hadn’t seen her almost fall. He probably doesn’t see her most of the time.

            And, I have to say, I was glad I saw her. Not fall. Because, frankly, what would I have done? With social distancing? Would I have run over and helped her? Or would her partner, in all his Hostile Mask Vibe, stop me? “Stay away from her! You might have the virus!”

            Damn.

            Again, what is the world coming to? That if someone falls in front of you, because of you, you would be afraid to help her?

            Thank god, she didn’t fall.

            And thank god, Mr. Ian was okay. Ruthie took good care of him. Mopped him up. Insisted we go to the emergency room. (He didn’t want to go.) And then,  20+ stitches later, I took Ian back home.

            All was okay.

            But we never found his glasses.

            And to this day, I can still see him falling…..

The Walking Wounded

I spy her tall tottering form about a block ahead of me. Headed up 31^st, her flame-red stretch pants calling attention to her, she lumbers under multiple bags slung over her thin shoulders. Gym bags, large purses, plastic bags—they create a precarious balance as she weaves, just slightly, up the sidewalk, sometimes veering into the street. Her grey hoodie covers her head, so I can’t be sure it’s the same woman. The one who periodically slams down my street, yelling profanities at some imaginary demon.

            The Walking Wounded as Owen Hill calls them.

            She’s one of them. And today, as I try not to catch up to her---I don’t want to engage; she scares me—I wonder where she’s headed. Or if she even has a destination. I remember talking to one of my neighbors on my block a few years ago. I can’t remember who it was. But they said she lived around here. That she had some mental issues.

            Duh. Anyone who runs up the street yelling at no one has some mental issues. Schizophrenia? Don’t schizophrenics see and hear imaginary adversaries?

            I can’t imagine how scary that must be. To have that going on in your brain.

            But this morning, she seems calm, albeit ready to fall down. I wonder if she’s drunk. Or if she’s not slept all night. Or, maybe she’s canvasing the recycling bins for recyclables, though I don’t note her stopping to check the large blue cans. Sometimes she weaves into a driveway and disappears for a moment. I think that must be where she lives. But then she reappears, weaving down the drive out into the street, her bags weighing her down, her gait slow and wobbly.

            I turn up another block before I come upon to her. Again, I don’t want to engage. We almost cross paths at the corner of 31^st and Esmond, but she doesn’t see me. I’m thankful for this.

            Yet another part of me feels so sorry for her. It’s a crime this country, that is so wealthy, lets its mentally ill wander the streets. Again, the feeling of helplessness. What can I do? And now, during this coronavirus crisis, what will happen to people like her? I worry about them. The homeless encampments in Oakland, San Francisco, Richmond, they are a breeding ground for a horrific crisis of sickness and death.

            Something needs to be done. But what? Mayor London Breed of San Francisco spoke about putting all the homeless up in hotel rooms, but then there were issues with this, of course. So then she? (I’m not sure who) just allowed the homeless to set up more tents. At least this way they were contained.

            Contained for what? A major humanitarian crisis that the Bay Area, in all of her riches, can’t forestall let alone solve.

            This virus is here now. It doesn’t seem to be going away. And for this woman, Miss Red Pants, what will become of her?

            I only hope she has someplace to go. That my neighbor is right. She lives around here.

            I turn a corner and there she is, tottering toward me.

            Yet again, she doesn’t notice me. She’s got the weight of the world on her shoulders. And that takes all of her strength.

Comfort

They come tumbling out onto the sidewalk from an open gate, 3 little mutts, shaking and yapping, tails wagging, sausage bodies wriggling. “Oh! How cute!” I exclaim, stopping under one of the giant fern trees that grow lushly at this corner house at Roosevelt and 31^st street. Ian grins. “C’mere pups!” He bends down. The pups approach cautiously.

            Attached to their leashes are two Neighborhood Ladies. I may have seen them around, though frankly I couldn’t describe them for you now. They’re that generic, middle aged, white lady brand—grey hair, big hats, baggy pants, Birkenstocks.

            But they know me!

            “You walk a LOT!” one of them exclaims as the pooches continue to explore Ian’s outstretched hand after asking if it was okay to pet them—"Oh, sure, of course," one of the ladies chuckles. 

            “Yes, I do,” I grin. “I used to swim, but now since that’s off the table, I’m walking. Twice a day.”

            The Ladies beam at me as one of the dogs backs away, growling lowly. “Charlotte! Stop that! Sorry, she’s a little shy.”

            I laugh, thinking it’s funny how dogs are like people. Some will come at you, wagging their tails while others will back away, snarling.

            These two ladies are tail waggers, obviously, as they continue to gush about my walking. “We see you walking every day. It’s such a Comfort,” one exclaims.

            I nod, not quite sure how to respond. What does she mean by this? That my walking routine is a comfort to her? Ummmmm……is it that she looks out her window every morning, spies me briskly marching past her house at about the same time every day, and so she knows that all is right with the world. The Lady with the Turquoise Hat and Red Ear Muffs is alive and well. Therefore, the world will go on for another day?

            This is interesting to me. That complete strangers can find comfort in another stranger’s routine. And maybe this is especially true right now. Everything is so uncertain. No one knows what’s going to happen day to day. Yesterday, one of the women from my Feminine Instinct Creativity Group was talking about her days as a health care worker and how each day was so uncertain. That one day her bosses said, come on in. Work with patients. Then the next day, it was stay home and call patients on the phone. And then the following week, the patients didn’t answer calls…..it was a perfect illustration of how uncertain everything was and still is during this pandemic.

            So, maybe these women, when they see me walking past their homes every morning, find comfort in my consistency. I am still walking. Every morning. And so, at least one person is keeping to her schedule in spite of the coronavirus.

            It’s true. I have developed a schedule over the last few weeks. I’m naturally inclined to create a routine, even when I’m not working, I’ll fall into a structure:  Get up. Make coffee. Read the paper. Go for a walk. Practice the piano. Take a shower. Write a journal story. Read a book. Take a nap. Go for another walk.

            It’s my nature. While one of the other women in The Femstincters said that she’s had a really hard time motivating herself to work at home. That she needs someone to impose a schedule on her. That she needs someone to tell her what to do.

            Not me. Don’t tell me what to do! I won’t take kindly to this. I mean, if I’m at a job and my boss tells me to do something, I will. I am a good worker. But frankly, I prefer to be my own boss. I have no trouble at all telling myself what to do!

            One of the dogs starts to strain at her leash. I tell the women that my mom just got a little dog, a Rat Terrier, Butterscotch, and these dogs looked similar.

Butterscotch

            “Oh, one of these might have some Rat Terrier in her. This one has some Fox Terrier. And that one,” she points to the growly little sausage, “she has some Chihuahua.” The dog yaps at us, backing away.

            “I think she needs to be on with her walk,” I observe, laughing.

            The Two Ladies join me in my mirth. Mr. Ian doesn’t want them to go. He loves animals, and one of the dogs has taken to him.

            “C’mon, Honey,” I take his arm. “Let’s let these ladies and their fur friends get on with their walk.”

            He comes with me, reluctantly. The ladies hold the dogs at bay so we can continue our walk while maintaining social distance.

            I feel the ladies watching me, walking. And smile to myself knowing that I somehow bring comfort to total strangers just be virtue of my routine. How strange. How marvelous. How unexpected.

            And in these times of uncertainty, walking is my one constant.

            What a comfort as I lead Mr. Ian up 31st street, the wild Richmond wind at our backs and the patter of little paws echoing in our ears.

Baby

“JOHN!!!! GET IN HERE!!!! SHE’S HAVIN’ A SEIZURE!!!!!!”

            I’ve just started my morning walk, too late. It’s hot; the sun blazing down in all her brilliant glory. Yet, I’m not supposed to be out here. In the sun. Melanoma and all.

            I am going at a pretty fast clip, therefore, when I hear this distressed shout from inside John’s house. (I didn’t know till just now that his name was John even though I wave at him every day. He will stop to chat, taking a break from his constant puttering in his yard. Last week, it was the Muffled Mask Chat. “I had to let her go…..mumble mumble mumble…it was time…mumble mumble ……” and I had thought, damn, did he have to put the roly poly beagle basset hound down? Yet then as he continued to mumble through his mask --why do people think that you can understand them through their masks? Or maybe they are just so desperate to talk they don’t care?-- I realized he was talking about his old dilapidated truck. The one permanently parked at the corner of my street, overflowing with miscellaneous handyman debris—part of a rake, stray piles of plant matter, boxes that needed to go to the recycling----)

            So, today, when I hear his wife? roommate? hollering for him to come help her with Baby’s seizure (he calls the overweight pooch, Baby), I pause for a moment. Part of me wants to start running, but another part of me, the writer voyeur part, wants to stand there a moment and eavesdrop on the shouting. Plus, I'm worried about Baby! 

            I don’t hear him answer. I can only assume he came running. That Baby was having a seizure—though since I can’t see in their house, it could have been someone else—and that John would help her.

            I start walking again. There’s nothing for me to do. But I feel sorry for them inside that house with a seizuring dog. I remember when I was little, maybe 5 or 6 or 7, living in Hacienda Heights, and we had this magnificent collie dog named, Laddie. And he had seizures. They were so scary. The massive dog suddenly stricken, collapsed on the asphalt, shaking and foaming at the mouth. I don’t remember the details of how we helped him. Maybe my mom put a stick in his mouth to keep him from biting his tongue or to keep the tongue from blocking his air passage. I remember that it was terrifying to watch him writhe and struggle like this. But then it would be over. And Laddie would get up. I don’t remember how long it took him to recover. Yet, he did.

            And Alice. My sweet tortoiseshell. The seizure she had at 1 am. She had diabetes. I’d given her the shot that evening before going to bed. But I’d done it wrong. I knew I had. Blood had popped out from the needle. I’d quickly removed it. Then she seemed fine. Owen Hill and I went to bed. On the futon in the living room at the bungalow on 63^rd street.  Then at 1 a.m, she woke us having a seizure. Her poor little body was shaking and she was foaming at the mouth and luckily one of us, probably Owen, had the presence of mind to run to the fridge, grab the sugar or anti –sugar mixture-- I can’t remember which, taking a bit on his finger---stuffing it in her little mouth. The shaking stopped.  We rushed her to Pet Emergency on University-- every pet owner’s nightmare --but she was saved that time. The vet said she was lucky. That we did what we did. Yet after that I never gave her another shot. I couldn’t live through another seizure.

            She lived a few years after this episode even without the shots. Yet the image is still in my mind. And I shudder.

            Now, I can’t get the voice of Baby’s mom shouting in frustration and panic out of my brain: “JOHN!!!! GET IN HERE!!! SHE’S HAVING A SEIZURE!!!!!”

            I try to shake it off as I turn up 31^st street. Try to focus on the mocking bird’s loud song and the too hot stillness of a day that promises heat and no swim.

            Oh, Baby. I hope you’re okay!

            I walk on….    It’s a another day in the neighborhood. A large orange tabby appears from behind a car, meows loudly, and then saunters away….And, I think to myself how lucky I am to be walking walking walking under the too-bright morning sun. 

Keep on Truckin'!

As I narrowly escape a head-on collision (social distancing speaking) with an oblivious chatty family towing a fluffy Shepard mix, I spot her long clean stride. The Scottish Woman. She’s always dressed in black. Stretch pants with a slight bell bottom. Long-sleeved black shirt. Black sneakers.

            She’s making her way across 32^nd street under the sheltering shadow of her massive avocado tree. I wave, happy to see her. It’s been a while.

            “How you doin?” I holler, approaching, and then pausing in the shade. She stops, too, at a safe distance, in front of her well-manicured landscaping of various drought resistance beauties.

            “Oh…I’m okay, I suppose….” she pushes a stray grey curl out of her eyes, her palm slim and fluttering.

            “Yeah, it’s weird,” I offer.

            “That it is. That it is…. I just got off the line with my relatives in Scotland. They tell me it’s not like this…” Her slim arm arcs across toward the various families, skateboarders, bike riders, and walkers crowding down Roosevelt. I nod. It does seem like there are a lot more people out tonight. Has everyone just had it with the shelter in place? Or is it just the balmy eve that has brought them all out of their houses, pried them away from their Netflix binging and cocktails?

            “Yeah,” I nod. “I miss swimming.” It’s all I can think about. I know I should ask about her family in Scotland. I am interested in her connection there since Mr. Ian is from Scotland, too. But tonight, I just am so tired of being out of the water. It’s so wrong!

            “You what?” she hollers back, not catching my whine.

            “Swimming. I’m a swimmer. All the pools are closed.”

            She nods, sympathy oozing from her. It’s palpable. I drink it in.

            “Where do you swim?” she asks.

            “Up at the Y, Richmond Hilltop. But it’s closed. All the pools are closed. The Y, the Plunge, El Cerrito.”

            “Oh, that must be tough,” she says. “To not have that buoyancy that is swimming, right?”

            I beam, “Yes! Right! Too much gravity walking!”

            “And the solitude, the isolation, the silence….” Her Scottish lilt drifts off, dreamy.

            “Yes, exactly! Not like here!” I step aside to let a yapping family pass, pushing a huge navy stroller down Roosevelt, no masks, no sense of social distancing. They would have just bowled me over if I hadn’t moved.

            “It is so warm today,” she notes. “Was it warm like this all day?”

            “I dunno…I guess. I was in the house, you know, sheltering in place.”

            She laughs softly, “I was over in Marin. It was warm there. Do you know if it’s going to last?”

            I shrug, “I don’t know…….it is the Apocalypse!”

            “Oh! Why yes….the Apocalypse!" She takes a deep breath, shaking her head.  "Yes… yes ….that it is; you got that right.”

            I don’t need to explain. She gets it. She got the swimming. Though I don’t think she’s a swimmer. Although Scotland is an island, surrounded by water. That sea must be cold. Yet, she intuitively honed in on my swimming mindset, my ‘blue mind’ as Bonnie Tsui wrote about in her eloquent book, Why We Swim. 

And now, with my comment about the Apocalypse, I don’t have to explain why I said this: the pandemic, the drought, the economic spiral down down down….

            A tired grin lifts her up, as she bends to pick up a stray weed intruding on her immaculate yard, “Yes, well, all we can do is keep on walking, keep on truckin’!”

            Did she really say that? Keep on truckin'? I haven’t heard that for decades. Maybe it’s a Scottish trait saying the sayings that are ‘American’ but have gone out of vogue. Ian does this all the time, but I can’t remember one right now.

            Yet, tonight, she cracks me up with this. Lifts my spirits. Sure I miss the silent buoyancy of the water, but in the pool, I’d never have the chance to chat with the Scottish Lady, right?

            I wave goodbye, turning down 32^nd street, a dusk breeze cooling me for a moment. And, think how all I can do is keep on walking, keep on truckin’, into the moony violet night.

Two Peas in a Pod

You know that old adage, “They were like two peas in a pod?” Well, it was invented for this senior couple I meet every morning on my walk. They wear the same windbreakers---hers is yellow; his is blue. They have the same baseball caps on—his is red; hers is blue. They have the same bow-legged gait, a teetering yet steady step that keeps them moving forward in their daily walks. They sometimes walk side by side; sometimes she follows him. But still, they are together. Matched. Two peas in a pod.

            This morning, like most mornings, I come upon them at around 31^st street and Roosevelt. They now don two matching masks: both blue. Is there any significance to the fact that the color is the same for this all important accoutrement of the pandemic? They stop to let me pass, and I ask them how they’re doing. “It’s a bit cooler today,” he notes. She nods. Usually not the one to engage in the idle chit chat. But she’s engaged. Supporting him in his assessment of the weather. I agree, predicting more heat for later in the day, “They say it’s gonna be even warmer tomorrow,” he proclaims.

            I can tell he’s grinning behind his mask.

            And so is she.

            My walk is usually such a solitary activity. I keep to my routine. I walk in the morning. I walk in the evening. I revel in the bird song and cat greetings and blue skies and purple irises.  I use these walks as a replacement for swimming. It’s not the same, but I like walking. Most of the time, I think about what is not going on in my neighborhood. How quiet it is.  No one else out walking most mornings. It’s just me and Two Peas in a Pod.  

            And, sure, once a week Mr. Ian comes along for a stroll—he’s my pod. When he walks with me, it’s an entirely different experience. He notices things that I’ve been walking past for months. The explosion of tangerine nasturtiums in front of a well-kempt lawn on 30^th street. The circle of yellow poppies that surround a tired patio. He points these out to me, interrupting whatever mundane complaint I’m in the middle of. It’s an interruption that I need. I’m too much in my own brain, esp. of late.

            I’ve never noticed if Two Peas are talking. It seems like they walk in companionable silence. Though now with social distancing, it’s hard to tell. Yet, you can tell they’ve been together a lifetime. They move and breathe and, I bet, even think in sync.

            One morning, I’d come upon them in the middle of the street, right below Clinton Hill. They were paused for a moment, and he was on his knees, tying her shoes.

            “I’d do anything for this woman!” he’d proclaimed, laughing joyously.

            She’d just nodded, smiling shyly as he finished the job.

            He’d stood and they marched on, up the hill, their brightly colored windbreakers crinkling in the breeze. And I had thought, wow! That is true love! Bending down on one knee to tie your partner’s shoelace!

            It’s an image and a sentiment that has stuck with me. And, today, during this walk, in this blue skied puffy clouded 51^st day of the shelter in place, I think how valuable it is. To have two peas in a pod.    

           Especially, if your shoe comes untied!