Reason enough

"Walk with your eyes down and you will be less likely to stub your toe, but you will have no reason to go anywhere."

My reason to go somewhere was simply a relatively cool and comfortable morning. I did not stub my toe, but I kicked a metal trash can lid. I caught the edge of it with my foot because I was walking not with my eyes down but sideways. I was looking at the flower boxes on a nearby porch railing instead of watching where I was going.

The boxes were filed with the ubiquitous impatiens, unremarkable except for their particularly deep shade of pink. In among the impatiens were equally unremarkable geraniums but geraniums of an even deeper edging-toward-fuchsia pink.  I was marveling at the colors when the trash can lid and my sneaker connected.

The lid landed on the sidewalk, clanging like a Chinese gong. At least twenty kids from all parts of the block turned and stared at me. They were out in force, playing away one of the last days before school starts again. I walked on, pretending I had no connection with the noise.

My friend Glenn once told me that when you stub your toe, trip over something or bump into anything, you are supposed to pointedly look back at it as if questioning its right to be in your way. This advice was gleaned from an intro-to-acting class he took in college. I'm guessing that more than anything else, it's a technique to get a small laugh out of a klutz move. I don't know, but I did not look back.

I just kept walking, walking through a morning that was reason enough to go anywhere, walking, walking and turning the great ball of the earth around and around with my feet.