On my daily walk this morning I heard someone coming up behind me. I turned and noticed a young man. Oh, I see people on my walk everyday, many have backpacks and lunch boxes. They move at a quick pace in the direction of the bus stop near Walmart. I also see dog walkers with their customary poop bags, joggers with ipods, and clusters of retired people chatting as they amble along.
I knew right away, this guy was different. He was tall, wore a muscle shirt and green fatigue colored pants. I kept glancing behind me at him, intrigued, but not sure why. His arms swung back and forth with each gangly stride. In spite of his quick pace there seemed to be an indifference to his demeanor. Something about him made me nervous. When he was about to overtake me, I dodged into a commercial parking lot. After he passed I headed back to the sidewalk and followed him up the hill. He had unruly dark hair that hadn’t seen a scissors in some time. When he got to Walmart, he passed the bus stop, and plopped himself down on the grass median between parking spaces. He just sat there, his long legs sprawled out in front of him. I realized he was undoubtedly a street person and probably had no where to go.
I think it’s odd how I immediately sensed there was something different about him. Periodically, I see street people. They usually have old weathered faces and faded clothing, unlike this kid, who had to have been between 15 and 25 years old. The biggest tip was something about the way he walked. He had a sense of energy the beaten down typical street people don’t have, yet there was no direction, no plan, every step was a new agenda.
As a mother, my heart went out to him. What horrible circumstances could possibly have brought him to the streets? As a writer, I thought about the characteristics about him that intrigued me and held my interest. I wondered, wouldn’t a character like him have a great story to tell in a young adult novel?
And then I laughed, had my “the glass is half-full” husband encountered the young man he may have never noticed him or he would have assumed he sat down on the ground to enjoy the nice weather. I hope my “the glass is half-empty” attitude is wrong and that young man is okay, but if my instincts were right I hope he realizes he does have a lot to offer. He fed my creativity without even knowing it.
“It is generally admitted that with woman the powers of intuition, of rapid perception and perhaps of imitation, are more strongly marked than in man . . .” Charles Darwin
