Nothing Ever Happens on My Street

Today I *walked around my neighborhood. The sun was shining and there was a slight breeze.

A beautiful day!

My mind drifted to class, as it often does.  We’re going to study picture books next week, and I’m excited about pulling my favorites from my shelves and borrowing others from the library. Invariably I bring in Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street and we talk about using picture books as springboards for writing. 

As I walked, I looked around and shared the main character, Eva’s feelings-- nothing worth writing about is happening in my neighborhood.

Then, I looked at the houses and remembered a few stories that have the ingredients that make most people cling to a book:

·         There is **Mr. Stump. His house was abandoned, but now it looks like someone has moved in. I haven’t seen him since he "took up with" a youngish mocha-colored woman a few streets over.  I can still see this elderly man with a deliberate gait walking down the street carrying homegrown squash to his new love. Curious, (OK, nosy) I stopped to chat with him each time we passed each other. He didn’t give too many details about his new love, but the way his face reddened and his grey eyes brightened was enough to make my imagination wander.

·         Speaking of love. Gloria has a new one. As I pass her house, I watch as this tall, walnut-colored man is building a storage shed for her. I mean board by board, from the ground up.  Um. There has got to be a story there.

 ·   Bill is outside when I pass by. He has the neatest little house and yard on the street. We chat while walking too. We discuss the renovations at the high school. We speculate about the whereabouts of former neighbors. We talk home repairs and yard work. I don’t really know Bill, but I make up stories about what his life might be like. Is he lonely? Is he retired military? Where is his partner? Does he even have one? Does he update his status on Facebook?  Who knows? But Bill might make a good character in a story. Maybe something Kafkaesque.

 ·   Then, as I’m rounding the corner to go into my own yard, I remember Daniel. Daniel and I talked about his late father who used to hit on me (not with the cane he used either) when he brought my mail over (Somehow my mail was always in his box.).  Watching Daniel care for his aging father is a story. Watching Daniel cross the street to come over to tell me his father was gone and then seeing his father's body leave the house taught me something I never knew about men before that moment. Thinking of this, conjures up questions ripe for narratives:  What did it feel like when Daniel's wife gave birth to a biracial daughter by another man?  What went through his mind as he decided to keep the child while the wife was in prison? How did he handle single parenthood under these circumstances? How does one adequately describe via story the love he has for his daughter? For his wife?

I could go on and on because I haven’t written very much about the stories the women around me could spark.  Soon I’ll take the time to do that, to record the things I notice about the people around me and how they react.

I don’t have to know the whole story, I can use my imagination to fill that in. My job would be to get the feelings right. That job is tough enough.

**All names are pseudonyms.

**Natalie Goldberg writes about walking meditation. I think that’s what I experienced today.