As home as sweet home can be, sometimes a girl's just got to get out. I had been in all weekend with Jane and Will (who caught a virus playing at a friend's apartment so our packing/moving week would go smoother, thanks a lot). Don't mistake me; I love drawing Crayola marker faces on manilla paper, deciding that Daddy IS Lex Luthor but is still pretty much a good guy, and watching vintage Donald cartoons. But: but. So Sunday, late afternoon, I grabbed my keys and journal and headed alone to the huge fountain a couple of blocks away, a gathering place for bums, travelers, kids wanting to swim. I watched the people passing. Wrote.
For several minutes I watched a bum lounge on a nearby bench beside everything he appeared to own: a red shirt and an old water bottle filled halfway with coke. Young guy--maybe thirty. Dirty, bearded, shirtless, shoeless. Mirmaid tatoo down his arm. Too skinny for his own good, but muscular. Four little black boys approached him, tossing a football between them, and the bum got in on the action. One of the boys threw to this guy sitting on his bench and, with the one-handed deftness of an athlele, he catches it. He, unthinkingly and with the indifference born of a longstanding familiarity with the motion, snaps back a tight, clean spiral.
Who was this guy in a former life? Where did he come from, how did he get here, where was he going? Where in the world did he learn to throw like that? This is just a snapshot, a simple passing thought before I circled the fountain for home to make dinner and bathe the kids. I love people like this. My favorite people are the ones who surprise me.
7 comments:
I have somewhat of a fascination with bums. When I see them, daily, I wonder what their story is. Just how did they end up the way the did; can it happen to any of us? Why do some bums seem so happy and talkative, almost dilusional, and others so jaded and cold.
I've always wanted to do a photo journal of the Portland Bums. Snap pictures of as many bums as I see for a year and bind them together. I don't think I'm ready for it yet, but it'll happen.
It was so fun to see a new post on our blog today. I'm always excited to read what you have written, Margaret. It's wonderful to get a glimpse of your insights and thoughts through your writing and in such an entertaining way.
Ksenia, I think you definitely should do it. Very interesting!
That sounds like a great idea for a movie. Gather a bunch of homeless people together who are really good at football. Have them join the city's rec league. Add a down and out coach looking for meaning in his life, a love interest, sprinkle in some encounters with drinking problems and emotional distress, and of course the villains... the mayor who is trying to "clean up the streets" and the city league champion football team. We have ourselves a Thanksgiving day feel good flcik of the year.
Bums to be played by Jim Caviezel, Cuba Gooding Jr, and Sean Connery.
Ksenia: I always think of who bums are, or were, or would be. Like I could have seen this guy as a shaven investment banker. The safe ones have fascinating stories. Take bum photos, take bum photos.
I do the same thing. I had to drive 45 minutes to the Preventive office every morning and night for a few weeks and always at the same stop light was a woman bum. She would go from car to car until the light turned green; asking for money donations as she held a large styrafoam Sonic cup in her hand, jingling her coins around. She looked to be probably about 40ish. Everytime I saw her I wondered what brought her to where she is? She's always at that same stop light. Will she ever go to another one? How long does she plan on doing this? Does she have a plan?
sometimes i feel like a bum....
I'm impressed by the things we don't know about folks, that end up being the real story. Sometime we find out to late who someone really is and wish we could still get to know them or ask a question that we now will never know. Thanks for reminding me of how interesting others can be if we look beneath the surface.
Love DAD E.
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