There's not much of any real import to pass on here apart from the living of my foolish little life. Simply being alive, the days flipping by at high velocity, sunlight and nighttime hours flickering past as if someone had been playing with a cosmic light switch.
What's caught my eye during walks around the city recently are faces. A couple of days back, I passed a mother walking with two little girls, a small, very young one being held in motherly arms, another, maybe six or seven years old, walking beside them. The older daughter wore a winter jacket over a school uniform. Long dark hair, dark eyes, face almost free of expression, eyes watchful and serious, taking in the world. There was no way to tell what thoughts were passing through that young mind, but she appeared to be a soul in serious input mode, absorbing sound, sensation, movement. Our eyes met briefly, hers flickered immediately away as she listened to something her mother said. And then they were gone.
Yesterday, late afternoon: me walking back here, coming up the block from the plaza. Two 50-something women passed, one an exceptionally normal-looking person. Average height. Shortish, matronly blonde hair. Wearing sunglasses, matronly clothes. A person who would blend easily into a crowd, not standing out in any way except by how easily she didn't stand out. She chewed gum, and as we approached each other, our gazes met. She held mine, expression blank, and began to blow a gum bubble. One that grew bigger and bigger, our gazes still holding as we moved by each other, until the bubble hid most of her face, her dark glasses peering steadily at me over it. So that I couldn't help myself, an enormous smile spread across my face at the comic strangeness of the moment.
She sucked the bubble back into her mouth, she and her friend continued on, her friend saying something, the gum chewer listening intently.
Just one moment in the stream of moments that made up that day, there and gone in seconds flat.
Pretty good exhibition of bubble blowing. Hard to ignore. Which may have been the point. Kind of calls into question the first impression of extreme normalcy.
We're an interesting bunch, we humans. You can never be completely sure what any of us will do from one moment to the next.