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Kilsyth Road


A curious girl and her impatient mom


When Nat was young, there were many challenging things going on in our family orbit, aside from the Terrible Twos. And then of course, I was trying to stay ahead of a full-time job in three days a week and be 100% present as a mother the rest of the time. Needless to say, success was not my partner, and I often found myself feeling and exhibiting an impatience not based on whatever was going on in the moment, but more the flames of an inherent overwhelmedness. This state of being made it a challenge to engage in that most wonderful rhythm of a toddler, drifting from one fascination to the next, taking time to examine in great detail every new thing that came into a new world.


We'd regularly walk the three blocks from our house to the Japanese restaurant in the Village, passing a foot and a half high wrought iron fence with arrow heads on top of each post. Somehow, this inspector had figured out that not all the arrows were adhered properly, thus wiggling if you held onto them. Without fail, when we'd get to this part of the walk, a lengthy interaction would ensue, resulting in an unbridled joy when the wigglers were found. It was easy to see how important this was, but if we were eating out, it meant I'd been at work with unhappy employees wearing out the upholstery on my visitor chair and was tired and hungry and ready to shut down. Making the leap to a shared enthusiasm was something I wanted to do, but couldn't always.


One evening, when I must have still had a neuron firing, I developed a game called Fast and Slow. Sometimes we'd walk very very very slowly, sometimes medium, and sometimes fast. I'd call it out and we'd get into step together. It was participatory, fun and would sometimes get us past the fence in less than 15 minutes.


Moving to where I am now, near Cleveland Circle (My friend Mary calls it the inner city), was an environmental transition. I don't know my neighbors the way Emerson Gardenians do, there's a much greater diversity of age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and even religion, and the area is more gritty and less traditionally pretty. So this summer I decided to contribute to the aesthetics by planting some self-sustaining hostas to fill a depressing area of mulch in front of yew bushes outside my apartment. Because everyone and their mother has a small dog they walk half a block at lunch time, and there isn't a lot of greenspace around, I put up one of those signs I always thought were annoying, purposely choosing one that was polite and not adminitory. "Please don't water our plants".


Investing in the future


One day, I was administering some much needed water to the leggy transplants, when a man who looked to be about 80 shuffled along with his medium sized, docile dog. He stopped to admire the plants and began talking to me about them while alternately watching his dog lift its leg and pee on one of my new hostas and reading the sign, then returning back to our conversation without missing a beat. I asked him to please not let his dog pee on my plants, then his dog spread his love to a different hosta. It seems silly now, getting mad at an 80-year old shuffler and his dog. but I was annoyed, so raised my voice and asked him to curb his dog. He shuffled off, I shook my head. Five minutes later, he returned in the other direction, stopped and said "I'm sorry", I thanked him and was touched, and by then embarrassed by my childish outbreak.


I had never noticed him previously, but of course since then I see him many mornings, on my way back from a morning loop around the reservoir. The first few times, I had an awkward feeling inside, wanting to just pretend nothing happened and be invisible, but because of his lack of speed, there's plenty of time for eye contact which I suppose has necessitated conversation. Today I watched him inching along, his dog trailing behind him, reminding me of that time long ago when playing the Fast and Slow game with a girl now a continent away. And perfectly, he complained to me that his dog needs to stop and examine everything they pass. Perhaps he's not really a shuffler, but a more patient human than I.


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