Part II

Day One

I am not brave and I hate to admit that.  A few summers back, I traveled to Peru as a teacher. I went to test myself.  I thought that if I could get through one simple summer, then I wouldn’t be afraid to enroll in the Peace Corps, I wouldn’t be afraid to  commit myself to 27 months of service.  However, I came home from Peru at the end of the summer after working through a teachers strike, after becoming overwhelmed by such massive need, after succumbing to a horrific fever, and after losing 10 + pounds...and I did not enroll in Peace Corps.  I was so disappointed in myself. 

I still fight with my bravery, or lack thereof.  After the awful shootings that have plagued my neighborhood of Uptown these last few days, I had resolved to try something extremely simple. I decided to devote time each day to sit on my balcony and to say “Hi” to every one who passed. But saying hi, I’ve found, requires bravery. I sat down on the balcony at about 1130 am on August 31st.  The first person wandered by..I told myself that I hadn’t started yet. Another passed, I left the balcony to get water. Four more passed and as each walked by, I took a deep breath to speak, opened my mouth and quickly closed it as nervousness took over. I saw a young white mother walking toward me with a child in a stroller. I inhaled, my heart rate racing, my knees shaking. “Hi,” I said. She looked up at me in surprise..”Hi?”  I quickly explained to her that I was just saying hi to every one who passed by. “That’s weird,” she said and went on her way.  Next I said hi to a young asian guy who ignored me outright. “Just perfect,” I thought.  This corner may be Vice Lord territory, but I am now on my way to becoming the “Corner Crazy.” My experiment was not working and I was starting to feel as if I were a sad cross between Rapunzel and Juliette on my balcony.  I needed an excuse to leave the apartment. Realizing that I had no cereal, I headed out the front door for a three block walk to the grocery store to pick up some Fruity Pepples and on my way I smiled and said hi to everyone I passed.  I said hi to a neighbor who I had seen the previous week at ‘Positive Loitering.’ I smiled and chatted with a couple guys painting woodwork on a local church and I said hi to a surprised boy circling the corner of my street on his bike. Upon reaching my doorstep, I sat down, fully knowing that if I went inside, my experiment would be over. I set my groceries on the ground, leaned back against the door and pulled a trashy romance novel out of my purse. (really..it’s not as though one could be reading ‘A Confederacy of Dunces,’ with any sort of conviction when one is actually focused on chatting up the neighbors..)

I ‘read,’ stopping frequently to say hi to startled passerbys. I talked with a young dog walker as he had passed me three times with three different dogs. I smiled at the usual corner kids, mentally making note of which homes they emerged from, who they talking with and what colors they were wearing. I counted the minutes between each time a cop drove by and occasionally, I did actually read. At one point, three pretty young black girls walked by. When they responded to my hello, I hesitantly asked if the kid who had bled all over our corner a few days earlier was ok. They assured me that he was and asked me if I had heard about the other shootings. They filled me in on the other two boys who had both been shot in their legs just a block from here. However, I did note that the incredibly polite teenagers failed to mention the guy who had been fatally shot in the head. (They did call me ‘Ma’am’ though..causing me to feel about 300 years old..)

After a couple hours of sitting and a well earned numb bottom, I picked up my things and headed inside for the day, happy that I had said Hi..

a little guardian.. ;)