sidekick

Yesterday we walked by a core of coop dwellers overhauling the garden lining their building, children raked and improvised, two men wrenched a stump from the ground, a women weeded on hands and knees behind the cherry tree wrapped in reddish grey metallic bark, petals already past. I envied the bags of soil they had stacked up on the sidewalk.

The other day when we'd past by the same spot on the way to school Nora ws inspired to ask me what kind of people can talk to animals. I felt out of my depth, so I deferred the question to Russell. He said you had to be sidekick.

At the walkathon yesterday Russell went hurtling into a mother walking nearby without an apology. So I apologized, and she said "no problem, I used to getting bumped into all the time." I'm not, I don't like getting bumped into. I can only imagine what it might be like to be so filled with love, compassion and spaciousness that when the blow comes on, as it always will, it's met with a familiar smile and understanding. How is that possible?