What we see when we aren't looking

I walk down my front steps in the dark. It's been a few weeks now, and I still haven't replaced the porch light. I step slowly, hand on rail. Sometimes I think I've come to the last step, but I've learned to check first. Timidly extending my foot, I wait for my toes to touch on some solid surface before my next move is made. Careful. I wait. I feel like I am ninety-two when I walk down my front steps in the dark. I keep forgetting to change the light, but I remember to wait.

It's mid afternoon on Sunday when I leave the cafe. The lonely sun hangs in the cloudless sky, turning everything quiet and calm in its posturing. I tell myself to "stand up straight." Lifting up my chin and stretching out my vertebrae, I cross the street and look straight ahead, not up, not down, not side to side and I most certainly do not look back. What we see when we aren't looking. In the shadow of a building, I feel a softening. A red leaf falls at my feet. My eyes catch a glint of light. Leaves keep falling, not one by one but suddenly and all at once. Limp and limber in the wind. I bow my head and walk home under a canopy of dissolving trees.