wonderment

today as i walked out the door to go to work i heard someone weeping.

today as i walked out the door to go to work i noticed people doing work on the street.

today as i walked out the door to go to work i was mightily confused.

i was confused first because i could not tell if the rhythmic sounds i was hearing really were sobs, or if i was just misidentifying something else.

but more than that i was confused when i realised they were sobs, and noticed them coming from my neighbour. not because i can't imagine him crying, but because he was crying while sitting on his front stoop, while three or four men did some kind of repair work on the street in front of him.

i scanned the scene frantically searching to see what was making him cry, worried that perhaps the crew was there as a result of something bad (someone broken one of his windows a while ago, i wondered if it had something to do with that) but as far as i could tell they were just filling a pothole. nothing, absolutely nothing registered as wrong in the picture as i scanned the scene, nothing except my neighbour on his stoop crying. my chest was tight and i was having a hard time swallowing. i was scared. scared that something bad may have happened in my neighbourhood, and also scared that something bad had happend to my eccentric shy, but perfectly nice, next door neighbour.

strangely though, as soon as jim saw me he got up, continued sobbing loudly and went back into his house.

i say strangely only because he didn't seem to have a problem with the men working on the street seeing him cry (and for the record, when he went inside they weren't very nice, they started making fun of his yard and stuff while he could very well have been in earshot. don't get me wrong, i make fun of his yard too, and you would too if you saw it, but i don't do it when he could hear me, and i sure as hell don't do it when he's just been sitting there crying so likely is a bit delicate. i must say i much more expected something like 'geeze, i hope he's okay', not 'oh my god, can you imagine living with this on your street'). it seems strange to me that he would be fine with three or four folks seeing him cry, but that as soon as he saw me he felt a need to leave.

i have been worried about him all day. but i don't talk to him, he's sooo shy, he sometimes talks to john, but never me. and considering he left when he saw me, i am assuming that he doesn't want me to acknowledge it at all, that he's more comfortable with me not knowing. i just feel like if i talk to him it will make it worse.

i don't know the point of this, i just have been tight chested all day thinking about some man i barely know and likely wouldn't even recognize if he wasn't standing in front of his house, so i wanted to get it down on 'paper' to see if that helped.