Jan 4, 2010

scenes before sunrise

already the sky lights up earlier!
i stand at my big kitchen window, teabag in hand, watching a young teenage boy, bent over like a wood-cutter's child with a huge pack strapped to his back. he walks up the hill to get the schoolbus.
my mug of water goes round and round in the lighted microwave. i can tell how cold it was in the night by how long the water takes to boil. the mug, the water, the machine all cold this morning.
a teenage girl comes up her driveway across the street, heading right towards where i, inside, stand in my bathrobe, framed in my lighted kitchen. we don't acknowlege each other. like the japanese and their paper walls, she doesn't see me thru my window and i don't see her through her curtain of hair.
one morning a few years ago i watched a woman  walk her dog up the pre-dawn street; a strange square hung down in the middle of the length of the leash.  next time i saw her i asked her why she was using pantyhose to walk her dog! (one toe tied to the collar, one toe round her hand) she thought no one had seen her, but probably half the street did, standing in their kitchens holding hot mugs of coffee or tea, watching the dawn break over the hills.  between getting kids to school, and herself to work,and the leash not to be found, it was the closest thing to hand! we laughed and laughed, and still laugh about it sometimes!

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