kendall whittier.

Looking down on my way out of the yard, I counted fourteen stones, rectangular in shape. My roommate Tonia had laid them down while I was away, to make a pathway from the porch to the driveway. Beginning my walk were these fourteen stones, in pairs, varying directions, leading somewhere.

I turned left at the stoplight, and without hesitation, my attention went to the yellow house with the purple door that we have affectionately labeled the pot house. Most evenings passersby will find its long haired inhabitants throwing the nurf ball around while standing in the middle of the street. When they get tired, they can take a rest on the full size couch or twin recliners that adorn their front porch. I think they were napping when I walked by.

I was on my way to Kendall Whittier park, suggested to me by Tonia, and a fitting place to begin this adventure. The street leading me there is lined with generic red bricked houses, as if that was the only house covering available in the fifties when these houses were built.

I followed her directions, to the “dead-end” sign that wasn’t really a “dead-end” at all. Rather, it was the end of suburbia and the beginning of sidewalks and trees and playgrounds and benches.

Sitting on the bench behind the batting cage fence was an older gentleman who some would refer to as a transient. I don’t know if I like that word any more than bum. To me, he was just a man, in a red sports jersey, and owned a bike, but likely not a home.

He picked the wrong bench, however, as he was forced to face the sky blue house on steroids that was definitely a painting mistake.

Then there were the tire tracks originating from a puddle rather than a road. A high speed car chase, I presumed, ending in a park, as the driver was trying to lose his tail by escaping the assumed road route. He must have missed the “no motor vehicles” sign posted at the entrance.

Winding the concrete sidewalk path, I came to the no name no character apartment building with the makeshift basketball goal in the street, the orange-ish round ball flying in from the shapely arms of two high school boys flexing their athleticism.

WIth my back now to the building, I passed the playground, for the second time, avoiding the swing sets. I was tempted at each crossing to jump on, but I think I am just waiting for someone to swing with.

As I left the park, and the children crossing the bridge from the imaginary castle to dry land, my heart was beating faster, and I felt a run coming on. So I obliged and fastened my pace. Nearly passing the yellow fire hydrant without giving it due attention, the word “darling” printed on the side caught the end of my eye. This is why I was walking and not running, I told myself...to see these things that the run nearly made me miss. I stopped abruptly and bent down to read the rest of it’s story. It was from Pennsylvania, born in nineteen-fifty-seven. Such an interesting contrast, to me, for a sweet work like darling to be adorning the side of an object that dogs are infamous for pissing on.

Running away, in a mental world of my own with yellow hydrants and frequent uses of the word darling, I snapped out when I heard someone from across the street yell to me a warm and emphatic “hi!”. The someone was a darling little girl in a pink shirt, who was being rescued from her car seat by her daddy. I glanced, returned her hi and accepted her wave, running now with even more purpose than before....eventually up the rocks to the stones Tonia laid, with intention, leading me between my flower beds, up onto my porch, and into my happy home.