Social Street

It has been particularly lovely this week walking the downtown loop. Although everyone complains about the cold I LOVE IT. When it is dry cold with sunshine I pick walking paths that start out at midday and head towards the sun and the Social Street area. I like to feel the energy of the city. It fills me up. People are generally friendly in this town and I appreciate it. And nobody tries to run your life. This is one of the reasons why I fell in love with my city. There's a friendly humility that pervades the community.

I love shadows. I invent them in my paintings. When people tease me and say you can't have shadows this way, I say it's theater!

The southern light casts building shadows over the street resembling a row of teeth. As I walk east I am in the jaws of the street. I switch to the sunny toothless side of the street.

In this town many people don't have teeth. There is now a dental clinic on the corner and I hope people are not afraid to go. I never see people going in or out. Maybe it's actually a secret spying office or UFO research office and not a dental clinic. That would be so cool.

In the late afternoon Lily and I like to walk to Precious Blood Cemetery because it is wide open and up on a hill. There are very few shadows falling over us. With bare trees you can see the pond and the sunset. Sometimes there are skaters on the frozen pond.

I love the expansive views in winter. And cold sunshine is the best!

Years ago I dropped my keys in a pile of leaves in a huge wooded cemetery that was 20 acres of leaves. I had a coonhound dog at the time. I said "Lucy, find my keys!" and she did. I kid you not! This is what hound dogs are bred to do!

I thought of this yesterday because when I got home one of my cobalt blue mittens was gone. I have a yellow scarf, red sweatshirt, and cobalt blue mittens. And a big yellow dog. People see me as a friendly clown, which is precisely correct. I even have a clown face!!

Anyway, where was I? I was struggling to get into my house (the lock was jammed) when I realized my mitten was gone. I went in another door, and then Lily and I turned around and retraced our steps. As I was revisiting my walk I calmed down and realized that I MUST'VE dropped my mitten in the kitchen! I had worn them into the house. I took one off to get the key in the door. So like in a Chelm story I was looking for my mitten outside in the daylight where I could find it but NOT where I had lost it!

While looking for my mitten I met a man who admired Lily. He told me he grew up with three Newfoundlands, that's how he had learned to walk. I said that my step-mother had told me the same story. She grew up in Marblehead holding on to a Newfoundland as she learned to walk.

Then I ran into my neighbor who had been diagnosed with cancer but they caught it in time. We hugged. She had quit smoking at that moment, she said.

I told her about Carolyn losing her wedding ring then finding it in her chicken salad and how she said it was HER mother talking from the grave. She responded with stories about her mother speaking to her from the grave by causing her pictures to fall off the walls. "And glasses too. I always have to have my glasses facing up otherwise my mother knocks them down," she said.

Her cancer had been in her intestine. We laughed about how there's a lot of extra tubing and plumbing down there. If they have to lop off an inch or so you'll be fine. It's not like with the brain where every inch is major.

Then I ran into an adorable couple with their two small kids. The boy had the same birthday as Lily! They lived next to AJ's Mini-Mart. "My dad lives behind the Dominican market on your street," she said.
"Then I know him, I'm sure," I replied. "Do you know Sophie the little hairdoo of a dog?"
"YES, Ed and Sophie live next door! Small world.
The little boy asked, "Will you come over to our house sometime?" I said sure!

Then I heard Heidi's voice. She works in the glass booth at the gas station. We saw each other and waved. Days like this make me feel like baking mini banana breads for the whole city and giving them out. Maybe I ought to, for the Highway Department storm team the next time it snows.

Or for the Public Works guys - there they are working in the park. I walked over to see the big yellow bulldozers and the cabbie waved. It was Eileen, she's the driver of the back hoe! What a world. I would love to do that for a day.

Then I remembered that I was looking for a blue mitten that was actually in my kitchen. This is what I mean about Woonsocket, my Chelm village, another walk in the sunshine.