My last few weeks have required a shift in my usual work/home routine, taking me to parts of the city and surrounding areas I rarely enter. It made for a busy, appointment-filled time, stressful because I’m never sure how long it takes to get somewhere new and if I can still make it back to the usual things I’m responsible for. So I was out and about, expecting to meet new people and have new experiences when I got to my destinations.
But I saw some things en route that made me think I should go different places a bit more often.
Here’s a sampling:
- A middle-aged man wearing black sunglasses, with wavy, slick, black, gelled hair, rhythmically pounding the walk button, taking a few dance steps forward, then moon-walking back to the crossing pole. It was a long wait for the light to change, a busy intersection, and there was no sun. He was moon-walking and dancing without any need of an audience, even though I was front seat center.
- Two bald eagles, each perched on a freeway lamp, too close to a city to be possible, yet I know there is no public funding of bald eagle statues on highway lights. And one turned its head. How did the eagles choose this of all possible places to alight? Why not a tree? Wasn’t it kind of loud to be where cars were whooshing by, a light traffic day so all the cars moving speedily past? Were they awaiting a morning dive for local fish? Are they there every day (like human locals who stop in a favorite Starbucks each day to snatch and scavenge their first meal of the day) or is there a local eagle circuit that I’ve been unaware of? How many people glimpsed these white-headed lamp ornaments? How many people came home and told their families, “You wouldn’t believe what I saw on the highway today . . .”?
- Speaking of Starbucks, I went in one I don’t usually go to while waiting for someone to give me a ride, and in walked an elegantly-dressed, white-haired businessman, slim and trim in attorney attire, complete with a royal blue bow tie. Why don’t more men wear bow ties? Makes me think of a dear friend, the only person close to my generation who wears bow ties. Also an attorney. He fights for the rights of old people, and he looks dapper doing it. Men my age no longer care to look dapper. And the men younger than my age? Forget it. Can’t even get them into a necktie of any kind. And if you did, their hip-hugging, butt-crack-showing nonsense just doesn’t cut it. And let’s not talk about Texan bolero ties. Good, good, good, don’t get me wrong, but not dapper. Is there a way to bring dapper back?
- Did I mention the Ferrari dealership? Is that dapper? Or rare like a bald eagle? Or a moon-walking middle-aged hipster? I’d look good in a Ferrari, I’m just sure of it, although this belief will remain untested.
- And my favorite – a high-rise with a swath of yellow light across what must be the penthouse floor. Your eye travels up, passing floor after floor of concrete and windows, nothing special, really, although solidly good geometry, and then, just as you reach the top, you realize that you’ve been drawn in to a yellow band of light, which reaches only partway around the building. The horizontal light strip is reminiscent of Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge’s VISOR. In this alternate galaxy, just minutes from my home yet out of my day-to-day sightlines, perhaps the building’s light visor can sense energy and monitor moods, aware of my gratitude and pleasure, as I idle at a stoplight, innumerable stories below. I’m hooked on this building, and the architect who was kind enough to grant a reprieve from the concrete, glass, and grey/brown/beige that dominates any city center.
Next week I have no appointments taking me anywhere unusual. What a shame.