Library Square, Take Two

Most Sunday afternoons, I fly under the radar. While my father drives to my little brother’s water polo game and my mom’s off the island at Costco, I pack a bag filled with the essentials: books, paper, maybe a little homework. The library doesn’t open until one o’clock, but I walk the two and a half blocks there by eleven-thirty. Plenty of time.
    On the corner of the block, there is a grass square, dappled with copper-plaque benches and cotton that, every so often, is evicted from the trees above. I trudge by this square every day on my walk home from the bus stop, but when I come on the weekends, the world is clearer. Organic.
    This place is my caffeine-free coffee shop: it’s ideal for watching people. I sit on the ground with my back against a bench- never actually on it- and open my eyes.
    There are regulars; old people with nothing better to do always try to be the first ones in the library, and I get to roll my eyes at the ridiculous, over-the-top PDA couple who must seriously believe that those beautiful things last. On these Sundays, I have the opportunity to smile at the homeless man whose home base has been this square since at least February. Despite what I’ve heard about him, I still wonder about who he is, what he’s made of, where he came from.
    In my mind, unexecuted plans thrive. I constantly think about the unfinished conversations that are too late to start now. I visualize scenes where I’m talking to a younger version of myself, but Older Courtney always covers her mouth, so I won’t give away the next part of my story. As I sit on this square and look out at these people around me- sometimes two, sometimes twenty wanderers of this world- real life characters finally accompany the conversations I’m dying to live. When I see people talk there, I replace their words, muted by distance, with the gutsy, honest lines that I’m too afraid to say myself. I extrapolate from peoples’ body language and try to find what they’re feeling. Some of them use hand motions when they talk, while others stare at the ground. More sit alone under the shade of a tree, parts of their faces illuminated by rays of light that fall through the space between branches. As I watch the way these people move through the world, I draw parallels between complete strangers and myself. Spending time in this space allows me to understand people without actually knowing them.
    This square allows me to view people in the most unaffected way possible. Nobody’s with their parents or in a classroom or being asked to conform to a certain standard. They come as they are.
    So the lovers love. The old men practically jump up and down as the librarian unlocks the doors. The homeless man still smiles back at me, ever since I first saw him last February. He keeps to a silent tradition.
    Me, I watch. And maybe, if I’m feeling brave enough to start a conversation which only produces the sound of a pen falling in unison with paper, I write it all down.

Reviews

[xoxconsuelo]

There is a continuation :D Great:) Did I already say that I really like your writing, your words, sentences, phrases ... You are a really great watcher too but on top, one, that can put it on paper in a very readable way ...
Loved it, but maybe a little longer Take Three?