People Watching

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Today I am grateful for people watching.  I’ve never understood the concept that someone could be bored.  How can you ever be bored when there are other people in the world?  Take yourself to a coffee shop or a bus station or an airport and just watch!

Yesterday we decided to take a ride to New Hope, PA, because we needed a dose of the Delaware River.  It isn’t Lake Michigan, but it’s not bad.  I’m sure someplace there is a woman or man writing a post about the odd looking couple they saw (us), and I don’t even care because I was watching them, too.  I’m interested in people in an almost scientific way.  What is their story?  Where do they come from?  Where are they going?  Why are they here?  What do they do for work?  Do they love it?  Hate it?  Why does he look so angry?  She so sad?  What has caused him to laugh like crazy when no one else in his group is noticing?  Is that young woman going to cry?  She looks close to tears.  Why?  People watching should be a college course.

New Hope is eclectic at best and wacky at bester!  (new word) There were motorcycles, tattoos and piercings everywhere.  And I mean everywhere. . .even where I’m not supposed to know they are, but I can “imagine” them.  And I did.  I saw a silver lame’ helmet on a babe with purchased boobs, on a huge Harley Davidson, behind a muscle-bound guy with purchased hair.  There was a sequined red cap, with tufts of white fuzz sticking out of it, on an 85 year old woman in a corvette convertible. (I was envious of both.)  I also saw a goofy keep-the-sun-off-his-Irish-ears fashion statement hat. . .oh wait. . .that was my husband.  He looked good and the hat is from Raffles, in Singapore so he made a statement with it, too.  There were cowboy hats and visors and straw numbers worn tipped back with attitude.  I just wore my spiky hair, which is perfect in New Hope.

We sat with our frozen yogurt, on a concrete wall right on Main Street, as the “parade” we had missed came by unofficially anyway.  What a trip. . . and you don’t say “trip” lightly in New Hope, either.  We wound our way down a back path, through an alley where two restaurant owners were discussing their new chef’s and menus and found a small overlook where we could sit and watch the water.  A lazy squirrel napped in a branch of a tree, flat on his belly with his paws dangling down and his little squirrel cheek pressed into the cool bark.  We looked at each other and decided to coexist peacefully.

Later we stopped for a beer and a snack, again on Main Street, this time elevated a little, where the view was better.  I made some determinations while we sat there.  I decided that while I am always very critical of my appearance, there are very few perfect bodies in the world, yet most people have something attractive about them.  Their hair, eyes, the way they touch their child, their general aura tells who they are.  Everyone has something problematic, too.  Even that skinny girl in the sprayed-on-test-pattern dress had a kinda big belly (for the dress, not for life).  Walking in high heels on the cobblestone sidewalks could be an Olympic sport and no one would get the gold.  Many people who are going with the exposed mid-drift look. . .shouldn’t.  Men or women.  I learned that a man can still declare himself to wear size 32 waist pants as long as he shifts his waist low enough. . .under the 5X belly. 

I learned that some people talk to each other at a restaurant and some don’t.  Sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t, especially if there are so many people to watch.  I saw women couples, men couples, married couples, cheating couples (you can tell) and one of my former students from when I worked at the school.  She has grown a foot.  I petted a Golden Retriever named Baxter for fifteen minutes and schmoozled a ten-week-old cocker spaniel puppy, the shade of brown every 75 year-old woman wants their hair dyed. . .soft, with a tinge of honey blond and red highlights.

It was a great day and I’m grateful we spent it together, watching people in New Hope, Pennsylvania.  I didn’t take one picture. . .but I’ve got a million of them!