I try to pay attention. I only see what I look at, but I try to look. It seems so many people don’t always want to see. Life is simpler if you only look at things that make you comfortable.
There is nothing happier than a dog going for a walk. Some of them almost wave at you as you drive past, sometimes they bark, angry you’re driving down their street. They always put on a show, a circus. Some of them seem to drag their walker from one scent to the next, others just Most times their owners don’t notice, they don’t see.
I walk downtown streets at lunch, and I see hundreds of people, they don’t see me. It seems they don’t see anybody. Locked in, they carry their anonymity around as plain to see as the identity card hanging on a lanyard around their neck. They exist as part of a group. Each one is an individual, but still gather strength from membership in a mass of moving parts. You learn to fit in, adjusting with the swells and rolls, it seems like chaos, but it works.
One day, while I was walking past the landscaping that surrounds the entrance to the elevated skywalk over Nationwide Boulevard it stopped working.
There was a gaunt, middle aged black man, wearing a dress. His skin was spotted, peeling from psoriasis, his hair was patchy and gray. He was picking up trash from the bushes and flowers. There were blossoms on the flowers and buds forming on the bushes. All the empty cups and food wrappers were a blight. I had never noticed how ugly they were, how offensive the trash looked until some of them were gone. I know the city pays people to come around and clean up the litter, but it always seems to be there, a constant ugly nuisance. Until this person decided to do something about it. He was climbing out when I walked up.
“Hello, how are you?” He asked. Smiling with pride. His bag of litter, hanging loosely over his left wrist, like a pocketbook.
“I’m doing well. That looks great. Thanks.” I said, waving my hand to indicate the one clean area in the landscaping. It was bright, and wholesome, the flowers seemed taller, and a little more colorful. They didn’t have to compete with the empty paper cups, gaudy with a colorful chicken, sandwich wrappers and bright, garish energy drink cans.
“Thanks, I’m glad you like it.” He said, his smile grew, slightly, he was missing a few teeth. He turned and walked away, and I wondered how he had managed to clean it up wearing high heels.
He was a light, the beautiful possibility of spontaneous volunteerism, shining through the fog of urban indifference. His light was powerful, beautiful, it held the whole spectrum of noble humanity. As far as I could tell nobody saw him, he was invisible, despite the fashionable red dress and the matching heels, despite the sparkling clean area between the sidewalk and the first stanchion, he didn’t exist. I had a feeling he didn’t exist in a lot of ways, to a lot of organizations. He was just a ghost in the machine. Forgotten.
Life is a mess, everywhere you look. There are always bright spots in the darkness, rays of hope. You can see it shining in the face of two beagles, looking happy, contented, out for a slow walk, their leashes trailing under a cell phone. Or someone feeling so much pride for tackling litter one bag at a time. It’s just a good idea to keep your eyes and your mind open, and enjoy the lights, the stars, particularly the ones that have a few flaws.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
