One of my favorite pastimes is “people watching.” I’m not alone. For I know there are many like me who can sit for hours watching people as they pass by – at the Mall, the airport, a restaurant, the farmer’s market, or the grocery store. I remember once my husband and I flew into San Francisco and had a two hour layover. This was before 9-11. So we were free to walk about the airport. In those days (and it may still be the same) the arrival and departure entrances were one in the same. We decided to walk out the door, sit on a bench and watch the people.
When we got back to our gate and had some time left, I took out my pen and notebook and began to write about what I had seen. It’s a habit I have to keep a journal while on a trip and it is one I can’t seem to break. I’d like to think it is the journalist in me, but the truth is, I have a keen sense of curiosity and I’m not afraid to speak to people and ask questions.
For example, I took another trip recently with my granddaughter and her parents. We drove down Interstate 75 to Walt Disney World to celebrate her 6th birthday. Not fifteen minutes after we picked her up from school I had my first installment in the journal. Watching the teachers, staff, students, and especially my granddaughter happy that it was the last day of school, was a real treat. She jumped in the car with her report card and said, “I’m going to first grade!” I spent the rest of the weekend documenting the trip about people in the resort, in the lines, on the rides, and other visitors like us who came from all over the world to the place “where magic begins.”
I wrote about a storyteller at the Animal Kingdom Resort. I wrote about a young man attending bar whose uncle was best man at my wedding forty-one years ago in Baton Rouge, LA. I wrote about the sunset, the Electric Parade, the food, the noise, the crowds, my beautiful granddaughter, my patient and loving daughter-in-law, and my wonderful son who invited me to share in this experience with their daughter.
But it doesn’t take a big trip to inspire me to write about the people I see. The everyday experiences I have supply me with many stories to write. Today, in line at the grocery store I watched a couple from Malaysia with two small kids. They could not speak English and got all but one thing on welfare and the whole time the wife was on the phone talking to someone ignoring the cashier. While behind me a young woman in what looked like her forties was talking on the phone so loud that I learned that they were rearranging the living room so they could bring a bed in so she could recover from robotic surgery. Her husband was going to take care of her, then another person, who “likes to help out when needed” will relieve him for a week and the then he’ll take time off again to help her recover. It wasn’t like she was trying to be private or anything. So when she hung up, I asked her what kind of surgery. She said hysterectomy. I wished her well. I thanked the cashier who had thanked me earlier for being so patient with the prior customer and I left.
Walking to the car a huge black bird was perched on top one of the high parking lot lights. He was screaming at all the people. I looked up at him and said, “I hear you!”
Lifetime Writing 