I’m walking down my block today, past the school. A little
girl, 2 to 3 years old, has stopped, leaned over, and picked up a white feather
from the sidewalk. I think, she shouldn’t be picking things off the sidewalk,
and I look around for the pertinent adult. About 25 feet ahead, a tall man
carrying a child’s backpack has turned around, looking back toward the girl. As
I continue walking, I think about telling him that she’s picked up a feather
from the street. But I say nothing.
An instant
later I hear him say, “Put that down.” I keep walking as I hear her voice the
perennial child question: “Why?”
If my block
were a village, I would have known that child and her father. It would have
been normal for me to say to her, “Don’t pick up feathers from the sidewalk,” or
to her father, “Chloe [or whatever her name is] just picked up a feather.” We
might have stopped and exchanged stories about what small children see on the street at their
feet and find fascinating.
But
hundreds of people live on my block and around the corner, and many children
attend the school I’m passing from other neighborhoods. I can’t know all of
them. That’s the price I pay for living in a city where I don’t have to own a
car, where there are dozens of movies playing every day, dozens more museums,
walkable streets and parks. I have my own “village” of friends around the city,
just not necessarily those I see on the street.
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Slice of Life Tuesday over at Two
Writing Teachers. Check out this encouraging and
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