People watching

There is so much fodder for writing in this city that I find this man captures it all. Who is he? Why is he sitting all alone on a park bench at 9 in the morning staring out to the Puget Sound? Who is supposed to be sitting beside him? Who is he thinking about? And as I sit all alone at a picnic table, 200 yards behind him, playing with a new camera, I'm inspired by his solitude. How brave to sit there like that all alone. How wonderfully freeing having come from a culture that fears private moments and lonely days. That never ventures anywhere alone, not to the grocery store nor the play ground much less a coffee shop or park bench. Is this man afraid of the silence or has he embraced it? Is he here to escape or embark?

Seattle is full of interesting people with complex stories. The stories I'm assuming, the interesting part is obvious. An older woman whizzed by on an electric skateboard! Two men were 100 feet apart, one sat the other stood, both were doing odd things with their hands, motioning, signing, pointing to the sky. A couple practiced some sort of Asian martial art to music, barefoot, in a parking lot behind our local park. A woman stands on her head in the corner of the rec center for the length of time I do all my exercises.

And these are just the interesting ones to me.