A Workman's Dream--Snippet 7

...Like I just finished saying, it's not the actual act of walking that bothers me. It's the things that I see along the way. I try to make myself do it differently each day; the walking that is, but I can't seem to think about much else and most of the time I don't much care to. It happens like this: I'm just walking down the side of the road when I see something like an overgrown yard, or a house where the paint is peeling, or a couple of lonely dogs and then my mind wanders down a thousand different roads chasing a thousand different rabbit trails; sometimes I do this so intently that I will get to work and forget how I got there. This happens more times than I care to admit.

    I walk by each house thinking about the million things I'd do to make it better than the people who own it because it never seems that they know what they have. As I move down the road, I manicure every inch of every lawn. I care for the dogs or cats I see. I paint each house and put shutters on them. I wave good-bye to the pretty, young woman standing in the doorway instead of yelling at her about something silly like cold eggs. I fix everything I see. I guess this makes me like most folks; I've got all the answers for everyone else's life, but none for my own. Maybe we should all just manage each other's lives. We might get along better, but then again, I'd rather be in change and miserable than not in charge and helpless, but that's just me.

    The funny part about it all is that my little, crappy apartment is a mess. I just can't seem to care much about the place. I always try to, but then remember that it isn't mine and nothing is harder to me than caring for something that you don't own. It seems to be pointless. They say home is where your heart is and I used to know where that is, but all I can really say now is that it isn't here. I tried to make it here, but she left a couple weeks ago and it feels like the city died in her wake, but that's getting ahead of things a little. I need to be telling you about my walking to work and how I do it. I feel like it will help you better understand me. I keep trying to do it differently, but nothing seems to work for me. I have tried to do it seriously and I have tried to do it casually. I just wish there was a way to do it while asleep, but there isn't.

    I used to try and turn each walk into a series of little games. It helps pass the time and is my feeble attempt to ignore my surroundings. I try to count the number of red doors, crying kids, angry spouses, cars that need their belts tightened, old people trying to spy out their windows without being seen, etc. I also play other little games, but they are all about the same. They all have to do with paying very close attention to the small details in order to ignore the bigger picture. I got this idea from a movie a guy at work loaned me. One of the characters in the movie said that nobody paid any attention to how bad the Yankees played because they had such nice uniforms. It wasn't what the movie was about, but it's what I got out of it. It has helped me a lot lately, but only sometimes. Many things still get to me during my games though. I have found myself getting angry at the things around me because their not playing the game by the rules and then I remember that I'm the only who knows we are playing. Then I feel a little silly.

   The biggest thing that really gets to me when I'm walking to and from work or any other place is when I see or hear people yelling and fighting with one another.....


Keep writing or shut it down? Please let me know what you think? Or if the story is confusing?
  David