Crosswalks As Stages

When you're out driving, do you ever watch the crosswalk shows?

Where I live they are really quite entertaining, funny, poignant, and enlightening. I hope you may avail yourself of one soon.

They seem to be particularly chock-full of meaning during the holiday rush, as people cling to their packages and scurry across the street tempting fate and the patience of drivers who are equally eager to move on. 

There is the harried mom with twins in a stroller, the shade of which is piled high with bags. Two close-in-age school kids are right behind her punching one another and caterwalling for mom's attention. She slows down enough to grab the older boy by his upper arm, lifting him off his feet, which increases his volume, but makes the little brother smile... and run to catch up.

Then, there is the too cool for school young adolescent boppin' across with the crotch of his pants down around his knees. He can't carry much because one hand has to hold on at all cost to his waistband which is down below his buttocks in back. He can't afford to run either, for fear of being de-pantsed all together. When he starts across with his wide stance walk, which I believe is another method of keeping the pants from falling to his ankles, there are only four-seconds left on the don't walk sign, you can hear the collective sigh of all the front row drivers/spectators, knowing they'll be a captive audience as he makes his way across.

A young woman who may as well have a neon arrow above her blinking, "Shy/Self-Conscious, Shy/Self-Conscious," with every step. She futzes with her hair. She looks over her shoulder. It looks as though that uneven pavement is sure to catch her stiletto heel. The tension is gripping. Aaah, she makes it to the curb with seconds to spare. Yay! Something about her crossing stirs my twenty-something self to the point that I feel all rubbery and gangly in my knees as I sit at the light watching. I am she. She is me forty years ago.

Saturday it was pouring rain through dense fog. Everyone who had a car was lucky, and mostly we drove with empathy for our fellow walk-about humans who had to manage not only their own person, children, and packages, but also the downpour and waves splashing out from cars rushing through intersections. 

I was lucky that I trusted my gut and exited a suddenly slowed to a stop freeway. I later learned that a tree had toppled and landed on a car and that both directions of traffic on 13 Warren Freeway were stopped for more than two hours.  Whewh! Mercifully, no one was hurt.

One of the most heart wrenching of the crosswalk shows involves an elderly gent who seems hard of hearing in addition to carrying a red-tipped cane. It's painful to watch him navigate the busy intersection of 35th and MacArthur Boulevard. Even though the electronic light chirps and talks and guides folks when to begin to cross, he seems not to hear the cues, or he disregards them. This causes the audience to root for him silently, if they stop at all, rude members to honk, or to say a prayer we never get to this point.

The news is that nearly all of us will get to some version of the "old show." Timing is the only mystery, but decrepitude is inevitable.  Whatever stage we're in or on, may we have the grace and resource to stay out of harm's way on a rainy day.

Safe travels.