Early morning walk
Eleonore Beaudoin
pleasant exercise and mind drifting time in another setting than indoors.
I wake up real ealy at times, as Idid again today. I was up at a quarter
to 4 A.M. The tv was still on...Saw the end of an old XFiles that made my
thoughts of the evening before seem to never have ended...I had read
soemthing posted, by Bill Blatty:), I don't remember on what ng, posted
two years ago was it, on "evil people". Although the word
"evil" is one I see used at all "sauces", and see used too frequently by
paranoid people, I liked that text. Well done, if I disagree with the
psy last paragraph, whereby evil ones would never go see a psy. The rest I
found well put for the laying thoughts on screen, if these are not
considerations I think of at all on a daily basis:). Just a sort of nice
distractive reading on a long evening.
Anyway. Checked the e-box. One email, a morning smile:) My server acted
strangely yesterday where I suspect that emails do not all get through.
I must say that I email way less since a few months. Kust a more
reflective inner, peaceful and relatively quiet mood.
Decided to go out for a walk. Wearing my hip cut jeans to remind myself I
want to get in better shape:), so I would not chnage my mind on my way to
the corner store.
I grabbed an Irish Cream coffee, and the odor as I poured it in the
styrofoam cup reminded me of my last job. Of how it was so unfriendly, and
such madness. Thought of Blatty's article and thought that it was like an
agglomeration of what he describes as "evil" people. Destructive. Self
destructive and destructive of those aroudn them, and in denial about
their destructiveness, keeping on their same destruction path their ways by
loads of pseudo-moral reasonings...The only good memory is the smell of
that coffee which meant break time, where I escaped them all by going to a
coffee shop none of them went to....They made cracks about me and coffee
all the time, not even wonderign why anyone woudl want to avoid them:).
But the thought also brought memories of the eyar before, where I was in
another building, in a team that was fun and nice and all, each having
their flaws, but all being kind and fun with each other, too:). Laughters
and giggles...:)...
And so, after I got a lid on the cup and on those thoughts, I went for a
walk. Not setting myself big ambitions for a first one, expectign it to be
more demanding than it was, given how I still feel weak from the long
and seemingly permanent "end of winter".
I just walked on my street....A first. I usually do not like the fact that
many are just sitting there all day long looking at people passing by. I
am shy and donlt like being looked at, stared at...Some I know form my
past work at the donut shop that always want to wave and say hi, but I
feel like daydream walks, like walks to empty the mind of routine
thoughts and allowing mind drifting thoughts instead...
I noticed that tulips just made it out, and was actually stunned they
coudl at all....It was cold enough that my ears were cold in no time, and
that I made a mental note to bring kleenex a next time, as the nose also
gets cold....I noticed a nice apartment building, well taken care of, with
its trimmed little cedars and edges, standing out in this neighborhood,
and on this street used as a shortcut from traffic making it almost as
busy with cars and buses as the main commercial street, one street higher
than mine... I stopped and looked at the neat architecture they used when
they renovated, obviously. Blaconies being wider and larger than the
standard ones arudn here, like 8' by 8', with patio tables and bar b qs on
them....Guessed they might be condos. The various objects on the balconies
made my mind drift about the various lifestyles people have and the
various life experiences that elad to the ones they have....I walked
further...A semi detached brought memories of two life periods...Age nine,
and our next door neighbor, who, when I was 26, still was my tv
repairman...and who moved one street below mine years ago, in an identical
semi-detached...No more family, maybe divorced, I did not ask...Maybe his
children all being adult he ended up alone, his wife leavign or passing
away...A kind man, he had drifted away in taciturn airs that said one
better not ask and underline it....He had made a lifestyle of taciturn
moments, and looked like oen not wishing disturbed in them....The forst
tiem I went there to have my tv repaired, he was nice and happy to see me,
remembering me:). The seond time, he still remembered me when I went to
get the tv back, but was suddenly closed, dark, taciturn (Engl?) and
remained that way a next time, where I celarly felt he no longer wanted
clients, wanted alone....I never went back after that....I wondered if he
was still alive, as my thoughts then drifted on my first dog I ever had,
Bibi,who was born in that house where he lived...and who had shared 13
years of my life....I smiled t the memories, and walked on....
My ears were already cold....I was only oh, the equivalent of three blocks
away. This street being a sort of dead end, i.e. the last before the
highway and a wall that seperates it from the hiughway, it has few
transversal streets in its first half...Where the blocks then are rather
long...But still, I was not very far that my ears and hands were cold even
with the coffee....I walked to a nearby park, with a city pool....Memories
of when I did volunteer work and helped handicaped people to have a swim,
when I was 24....Smiles thinking of S., whom I ahd not seen since college
then, and who happened to be one of the persons waiting to be helped for a
swim...:). Cerebral palsy. S. Hawkins always reminded me of the S. I knew
since college:). There is a strong resemblance, save that I imagine
Hawkins less kind and less opened to people:). I used to jog between 8 and
13 miles three times a week then, and had swimming classes, passing my
lifegard level, on the no jogging evenings...I was in Uni...Lived in a
house and rented two rooms where the rent was so good, I made 5 dollars
when renting at a very accessible price for students. Wondered where A.
and B were today, that shared my life in that house for six months. The
two gys had ended up renting a place together...Very different
personalities they were...Flashback of them walking in my room at night to
ask if I had any white thread:), or even once jumping in my bed like two
funny twits playign "Let's scare Chloe":), but in fact wanting to watch a
bruce lee movie, where the tv upstairs apparently decided to not work, the
very oen that woudl bring me to my ex neighbor to have it fixed two years
later...Strange how events lead to other events and moments make the next,
sometimes...
I looked at a picnic table int eh aprk...The thought of bringing a bag of
old things I want to rid of, in sortign the still unpacked mess, crossed
my mind...I coudo leave it there with a note "Help yourself", on that pic
nic table....I smiled wondering how long it woudl take for someone to
realize a bag woudl be apearign there each morning:)...I'll have to
remember that idea. Neat way, rather than loading the car and taking it to
second hand store where they sell to the poor at crazy prices...
Noticed a bicycle stand, and wondered when it was I last had a
bicycle...Used to bicuycle to my swinning classes, to get the max exercise
when I was not jogging....Memories of the baby seat at the back, and of
kiddo being such a heavy thing until he was two, growing all at once
between 1 and three months and reachign a 3e pounds (sic) by three months,
where I rememebred how hard it sometiems was to keep balance with his
weight at the back, when I stopped at lights or corners...Memories of
visiting my older sister who lived maybe 2-3 miles away then, where once I
fell in that street,with kiddo at the back crying, where neighbors had cme
to help me...I'd try all I coudl to see poeple, visit my sister, have some
contact, be civilized and all that....
Sad memories of never feeling welcome, while told I was....Of the marital
tensiosn OI felt inther,e of the constant bickering and cracks...Smiled at
the thought she always was one awful cook, where even then, I prtefered to
leave before meals, but coudl not always avoid the always tasting dry
raisins meals, that they be steak or sheppard pie....She would put dry
raisins in *everything*...How her hubby coudl stand it beats me:). I mean,
we are talking such bad cooking that woudl oen try on purpose, they
probably never could do it a bad. Her pies were always white, he crust
never cooked, Yuk....Adn I would look at the life of the rich ones earning
in the 6 digits twice, in a couple, and at the way the kids were spoilt,
in the negative sense ofthe word, and I would find myself strange to not
wish to ever live that...Yet found them even stranger to live that way...
How can poeple live together and be so bad to each other? They divorced
after 21 years....But they were divorced from the heart before they ever
married...She was financially ambitious, tired of a poor life and wanting
her kids to have the best. It was her ideal, her right to have it, long
live free will....But his was to have a simple quiet happy easy ging
family life with other values, such as a sunday dinner that one would not
forwn at even more for the recriminations and the financial cracks than
for the unbaked pies...Super swimming poolat the back....Never was invited
to swim. More, 2as told flat off that if I went there hoping to swim, I
might as well forget it, that they ahd decided that if poeple wanted to
swim, let them work and earn a pool, they were not going to be having
poeple over to swim. I felt liek saying I swam three week evenigns and
practiced on week ends at a very quiet city pool two street down her
place, but said nothing. Save one day ask my brother in law if he'd help me
by looking at what I did wrong when I did a certain dive, where he came to
the city pool and watched and laughed and told me...I removed my hands a
fraction of second before enterignt he water, that was why it felt like a
bad impact on my head and neck, like doh:). The house always smelled of
cat litter...Super comfy split level, huge, and that smell of cat poop all
the time....Her cats were a display, She had this thought that rich poeple
had persian cats, and had a blue point siamese too...Both always sick,
from never being patted, cared for....Even the kids tyranizing
them....Rotten kids they were at that time. They endeed up not so bad,
though. They were loved, if loved wrong, loved a lot, seen liek preciosu
displays, but loved for their superior attitude which then made my sister
feel they woudl make their way in life...One did. The other ended up like
me, where oddly, the mom got closer tot hat one as her own life changed,
after the divorce....Hard times made her better appreciate the efforts
soem did in life, and betetr understand that there is something more than
money and displays to impress the neighbors to happiness...I frowned and
smiled, thinking of the two lifestyles she ahd, where lately she wa
tellign em that the way people were, as much as they foudn her a snob way
back, it was better in her opinion that she woudl become a snob again, and
describing it exactly as a wanting to go back to "fart higher than the
hole", as the family expression, coming from my father, always was about
pedant and condescendant precious hollier than thou ones...:).
Stayed a moment by the pool fence, letting my mind drift with my eyes...
Then raised my eyes as I was about to go, and saw a seagul....Staying high
above, but always on a same point...I smiled. I figured it did that each
morning, where the wind from a highrise behind that park must make a
strong wind current that allows them to stay on one same spot, just as if
immobile, up above....:)
Looked at the balconies of that building...Different lifestyles. Poorer...
Saw a kid of about 13-14, a biy, run from the building, taking a short cut
through the park, running still...Probably to catch a bus on time....:)
He had a fast glnce at me, his facialk expression showed he decided I was
okay and no danger, after eh was stunned a moment to see soemoen immobile
by that pool fence:), and kept running away.Havign his first smile of the
day:)...
Looked atthe building again and had other memories. That was where X
worked as a janitor and maintenance guy....Was married now, I guess, as he
was to be married with Y,where both X and Y were so nice to me when I
worked at the donut shop. She liked her coffee vlack with one sugar only.
He liekd his with 4 milks and two sugars...X kept saying hw much he liked
me, and I at times wondered about that "liking" stuff being possibly other
than a simple friendly thing, but sicne his wife to be shared the same
opinion and did not mind, I figured it was just me being too "wild" and
asocial, maybe....Turned out it was all about wanting a threesome, before
they wed (!!!) where their wedding was three weeks ahead. I rememebr how
sad and down I felt about Mankind that evening....Having thought some
poele were nice, and finding out they seemed t always be after soemthing,
and not nice for just the sake of happenign to be nice but for some agenda..
Sad to ahve to beware of niceness, but such is the world at times....
As I left the park, I realized that the wind seemed to have
raised....Maybe I had it in my back before, but it still was not that
strong, I would have felt it...Given how cold the strong wind was,
and realizing I'd have to face the wind too to go back home, where my ears
already were cold, I decided to walk back...The wind was so cold, my ears
are still cold *now*, as I write this....
Through the opened window in the computer room, I now hear the distant
noise of the morning traffic on the highway...20 to 8 A.M....
And I giggle softly inside thinking that most people thinking that a
successful life means a reading in a bank account over 5 digits at
least:), most then must have spent the time before the highway daily
commuting bickering about this and that, and eating uncooked eggs with dry
raisins, in the stinky smell of cat poop and pee display of non love....
I am one lucky dang thing:).
Chloe
P.S.: If they say that the early bird gets the worm, I saw the early
worm be had by a bird, today...And thought that yep...Not everyone gets
the best of each morning, indeed...
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