I was taking my walk. Lost my eyes in bright sun, my empty casserole clanking softly inside my bag. It puts life things in focus, when there's only such a little time, and still, I almost missed it. I was staring after some guy. Duh. An unimpressive guy, but that weighs about as much as a grain of sand. I get too curious for my own good, see, and I was busy making up a story inside my head. Guy in his 30s, out strolling with his dad on a Saturday, and looking manly and bohemian, and who they were, and what their relationship was like. A little strained, not in that way of used to take a belt to me as a kid, but just in that way guys struggle to talk to each other sometimes. Why is that?
Anyway, he seemed like an honest, decent sort of guy, and I thought where he was off after, and what he'd think about when his dad died, and whether he liked the quiet of Sunday mornings as much as I did, and how much time might go by before they tried this again. It was the mother who pushed it, it's always mothers, isn't it. Brilliant, miracle-sprouting things. And he was so young, except old enough to be better, to do for his aging parents more, except it's hard to remember how time trickles the same way when you think it's going in different directions. How can I be headed to the same grave?
And his da, his da still looked, well, not old. Still trim and not hunching forward, still in his jeans and with a shock of gray-black hair. Still very much with his own ideas that weren't kitchen-radio ideas, still getting excited about books and all these novel, interesting things. Still a person in his own right. Hadn't crossed that threshold that people inevitably go through, where people around them relegate them to "old". Even the kind ones. Still catch themselves thinking of a parent or an aunt as sit-inside-their-own-stew-and-broil "old". Close the blinds, I don't need the sun today is a thing, and is it inevitable with age, or is it because if enough young people around you think it, then eventually you do, also?
Anyway, he wasn't. The dad, and it was making things that much more difficult for junior because, well, at least then you have things to say. Little obligatory things about health and politics and not listening to the news, and check-ups and prattling old neighbors. And maybe in a few years, things would lighten up between them, though of course, by then, there would be other things to worry about. Aren't there always.
And then it hit me. Just after I'd gone past them and already, they were becoming a blip in my lunch break. There I went again, with my big lopsided mind, scribbling over my own reality. I knew them. Of course I did. I'd seen the "son" in a Polish play just a few weeks before. He did alright, got some laughs.
But him. The dad-him who was somebody's da, but not this guy's. The tousle-mouse older him had gone past me and I'd almost missed. That was one of the cleverest artists in the country. And there I was, getting flustered and all red because one of the coolest theater directors had just walked past me like I was someone worth walking by. I mean, maybe I didn't get quite so look at little old me, but you get the idea. I love this guy. Been in awe of this guy for years. Gave me an education, this guy, and there's many a playwright I wouldn't have a clue about if it weren't for him.
And I didn't say anything. I thought maybe I should, but I also thought he's a very private sort of guy, and there I was in my sports bra and my hair all over the place. And anyway, they were several feet away now. Human feet, not those wacky sort of clown feet Americans measure by. It would be awkward going after them, but I was in my heart so pleased to be let in on a little secret. To know this ordinary-looking guy had this wonderful, strange mind inside his skull, and thought up all these poetic, quirky things and didn't make theater a masquerade at all the way other directors do.
I thought this, here, watching this beautiful, brilliant man walk into the sun on a random Saturday, that's life.
