Several Summers Ago...

Several summers ago I broke my leg. I didn't actually break any bones, just mangled my knee. I spent seven weeks on the couch in my living room - right in front of a large window.

I could only face one direction. I could only lay on my back. All summer I faced a small strip mall of local businesses. For the first few weeks, I could not get up on my own. Someone was necessary to pull me up. Oh, I shudder to remember the horror of that!

It was a busy time in my life when this all happened. Daughter had just moved back home after her first year of dorm living. Youngest Son was about to graduate from high school, go on a class trip, and move out for the summer. Oldest Son was moving out of his dorm and into an apartment on campus. THGGM had just started fulltime at his new job (read -'uninsured').

But by day, I stared across the street. I watched neighbors pushing strollers, walking dogs, buying ice cream cones.

A few months earlier I had written in a journal how I wanted nothing more to do than to have a week to lay on the couch and look at magazines. And read books. And draw.

After two weeks of laying on the couch reading magazines, polishing off a novel a day, and drawing pictures of my foot I began to get bored. Yes. Me the one who doesn't get bored because I have such an intensely rich inner life. Son-in-law (daughter's boyfriend, then) brought me his lap top. I did on-line searches of all the interesting topic I'd thought about over the years. I researched pre, post and a millennialism. I was still bored.

THGGM found a small TV somewhere and brought it to me. We did not have cable, nor a working antennae, but I was able to watch some TV. I wrote in my drawing journal, the one in which I drew pictures of my foot, that one day I was so bored that I "almost watched The Partridge Family". That's bad. That's really bad.

So, my major entertainment was looking wistfully at the little shops across the street. Boring little shops where not much at all went on. A dog groomer. A floral shop. A hobby shop. A sports card shop. A sub shop. A pharmacy. Nearby, a resale shop. A beauty shop. A dentist. A video game resale shop. An ice cream shop. All within my range of sight.

The other entertainment was watching the bus stop people. They were on my side of the street. I could write a book about them. Strange, sad individuals, those bus stop people. Here are a few of the best recorded lines I heard from them that summer: (cue mentally challenged man dressed in a dignified manner, chanting in a very loud sing-songy low voice) 'Big FAT Black Girl Coming Down the Street!' And then there was the mentally impaired young looking girl standing in the middle of the road at 5:50 on a Saturday morning: (cue high pitched whiny voice and choice swear words) "WHERE are you, you $#% bus! You are @(*&%*! late! You are supposed to be hear at @#$& 6:00! Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!" Oh, yes! But that is not all. One morning I thought there was a fight. I could here what sounded like a rapper rapping. And, then an old man answering. One further inspection, there was just one man. He was playing both parts. He was convincing. I was sure he was about to be killed. But, no. It WAS really just him. An old man standing at the bus stop in a classy rain coat with an unmatching floral rain bonnet. Charming.

One day, I just could not take it anymore. I asked someone to please bring me my wedding pictures. I just needed something DIFFERENT to look at. Something that would bring me joy. And, it did bring me joy. Looking at all those happy faces from twenty some years ago.

Then I turned to the last page.

And there it was. The EXACT view of the strip mall I'd been staring at for weeks.

It's the picture of THGGM and I getting into the car as we left the church after our wedding. You know, the church that I live right nextdoor to now.

If there is ONE thing that can be said about me, it is this:

I have not gone far.

(and, for the record, i still cannot find those wedding pictures!)