BEFORE I think about how to respond to a stranger, I feel them; the gestures, expressions, tone of voice, movement, conversation, mannerisms, and eyes. I acknowledge feelings first, then I think.

When I’m driving, I feel sprite or gloom. I feel a twirl of sensory perception from the drivers’ faces and witness the joyous reciprocal ink of friendship between shopkeepers, cops and dining customers, city workers, and service technicians trying to fix satellites and cables in a village with inconsistent infrastructure.

SOME of my principles are unsupported by experience, but more with GROWING UP WITH GANGSTERS training that I cannot erase.   My theme is unbalanced; I take the extreme path instead of the path with arrows.  It is why writing settles my sea-saw.  As I sit in my antique wooden chair looking out, feeling Saturday’s silence beneath a blanket of blue sky and radiant sunshine, a tiny thread of peace realigns a week of political profanity, war, and death, but they got Sinwar!   The sedate and quiet surroundings relieve my spinning head, and I just continue to sit and not fidget.  

I’VE observed the village people; some appear to drag their bodies rather than hotfoot. I wonder if all the global Google news has weighed us down.  Teens signal youth’s fascination with experience, newness, and expectation.The exchange of human voices as pedestrians walk along the street, I’ve noticed that New Yorkers speak in voluminous pitch. I can hear their voices from my bedroom on the third floor with closed windows. Humanity is our background symphony, along with the crows, lawnmowers, power saws, blowers, and racing cars.  This street is part of my theme;  a juxtaposition of historic homes and modern toys. I am a 21st-century flapper clinging to the roar of independence, self-expression, and breaking the rules.  If we feel the chord of festivity,  we should not hold back.  I am going out now to see if  I can feel more.   

Sunday October 20, 

I walked out to the porch and slouched against a pillar to feel warmed by the sun. My dermatologist advised that I should not stay longer than ten minutes, even with fifty UV protection. Today is family day and a car show in the village. I experienced it two years ago, so I remain at home; listening to the geese go south for the winter and feeling solitude. It’s like a branchless tree, a storm without an umbrella, a garden without flowers, and a home without company. Oh, snap out of it. Go to Henry’s Tavern and watch the game with men losing their cool. They get insanely raucous s over football.