There is something about sunshine, leaves, and bundling up… that makes me turn into “that one girl” who sits around and watches people. I’m not obsessed, just interested. Today I just needed some air, so I sat under a big tree. No big deal, just the bench, the tree, and me. Having a good ole time. Not to mention the sun was making everything gorgeous, waving its golden beams into and over everything in sight… deceiving every inside onlooker thinking that it’s warm outside. It’s lying. It’s frigid out. BUT any cold day is much more bearable with the sun, even this one.
So I sat outside, people watching, for only about fifteen minutes. But in that short span, there are so many stories that can walk right by you. Right past you, and on into your brain. I see a man who looks like he’s late for something, very businesslike, yet i’ve never seen him before. Walking brisquely by, I doubt he’s a professor. I wonder what he’s late for.
There’s a cute cozy little couple, holding hands while walking and just generally focusing on looking cute. Poking fun at one another, no doubt. They make me think of my own romance, and how much fun flirting with your loved one is. Especially laughing while walking. Then there is a tall very boylike college student, who barely seems he could be old enough to enter college, and I wonder at how he will look and be when he’s sixty. He is so very boyish that it’s quite difficult to imagine him as an old man! His mannerisms are all awkward, like someone who just had an enormous growth spurt, and whose body is still sorting out the difference. Maybe he just did.
Then I wonder about how many people have walked in my shoes, sat down under this tree, and began with their people watching. It’s like a little circle of life: how many stories the tree could tell! And as the story goes, I am also one in the plot, who plopped down under the tree, thinking of life and all those around me. Interesting, isn’t it?
A Captive Mind 
