Summer showed up without calling. A week ago, I'm out there in long sleeves, walking through an Ingmar Bergman movie, and now it's eighty degrees at 7 AM and bright as a Nickelodeon show. Why did I start with that? I should have just got right to the squirrel.
I clock him as soon as I step out of my yard. He's on a low branch in the big sidewalk magnolia. I give him the old "oh, hello there Mr. Squirrel and how are you on this fine sunny day?" I expect him to scatter as soon as I put my energy on him, but he doesn't move a muscle. And I don't mean he's locked in some frightened rodent freeze, I mean he's staring me down from six feet away, and if there was a caption bubble above his head it would say "you got a problem, Mac?" “Oh, so you're a big shot, huh?" That's me, not him. "Think you can just stare me down, and not do the whole run from the big, scary man thing? Okay buddy, let's see what you got?” Now, I go into an exaggerated Bruce Lee kung fu pose complete with circling hands. "What the fuck is the guy's problem?" That's him, not me, but I don't care, and add some Bruce Lee “Enter the Dragon” vocals, which sound a lot more Noh theater of Japan than I intend them to. The squirrel is unmoved and stays right where he is. I up the ante, throwing three karate punches and a roundhouse kick. Nothing. Clearly, he is a wise old sensei squirrel and so I clap my fist in my open hand and bow to him. The second I turn around, two chirping sparrows flitter right in front of my face, then a cat I don't know darts across the street to avoid three dogs and their walkers engaged in a little sniff and greet session on my corner. I've stepped out into a David Attenborough documentary.
I love my neighborhood, I think to myself or maybe I think, I am connected to all things, life is a Busby Berkeley movie, the choreography everywhere you look. Actually, what I think is, I can feel another "Morning Walk" Substack coming on, I wonder if people are bored of those?
I clear the dogs and now there are no animals or people in sight. Just me, bright sunlight and vivid colors: greens, yellows, jacarandas covering front yards in purple dandruff. I inhale a gush of white chamomile flowers and feel nature’s magic, my world momentarily transformed into a Swiss meadow. I want those in my backyard-- I want flowers, flowers, thick and high, and I can envision a fecund existence, my backyard worthy of a pith helmet, and it is not unlike writing a few opening sentences in your head and with the next thought, a novel is finished, published and adored.
My Korean pal is not there today, maybe he's still sleeping or eating an interesting grain for breakfast or maybe he's chanting in front of a homemade Buddhist shrine even though everyone else in the house is Presbyterian. This is okay. Today is not about humans, it's about light and color and scent. It's summer. "School's out forever" as Alice Cooper said and there are no Latino children to marvel at. I embrace solitude. It is good to be the only human in the world. We are all the only human in the world.
And then I see a person of interest, long-bladed trimmer in hand, sculpting a large front yard shrub. I don't know him well, but I know his house. A white and brown beauty that is on the cusp between craftsman and Victorian. He is deep in task, his back to me. This is good, for I am a lone pilgrim on a silent pilgrimage. I stop and stare at him and his meditative trimming, the sound of his clippers, a pleasant, electric hum. But now it is time to move on. So, why don't I? In fact, not only do I not move on, I turn up my current, and telepathically send him a message to turn around and notice me, which he does.
"I like what you're doing there," I call out, and he smiles, even though he has not heard what I've said. Now, he clicks the trimmer off and heads toward me. He's an older man, maybe mid-70s, black with a tight gray afro, and a thoughtful, measured bearing. "What did you say?" His voice is deep, sonorous, radio worthy, and as soon as I hear it, I remember our few past interactions. "I said I like what you're up to there." He chuckles. "I don't really know what I'm doing." And now we're off and running. He asks me, what are my plans for this fine day? And I tell him I'm on my walk, which leads to stretching then coffee then writing as it does every day and then he does his "oh, you're a writer" part and asks if it's journalism or fiction, short stories, what genre and I keep up my end by saying yeah, all that, but really, I'm a screenwriter and somehow, I don't feel the need to tell him my credits and he doesn't feel the need to ask. He makes a joke that hopefully I won't be on strike again anytime soon and I explain that I never was and work in the Animation Guild. I ask his name, and he asks mine and offers a fist bump in his garden glove. When we get around to him, he says he's retired but was a government administrator who worked all over the world and was in Italy for four years, "down in the heel of the boot." "How's your Italian?" "Not what it was." The words Crete and Corfu get mentioned because the tourists took the boat there from the town that he lived in. Now, he calls us "a couple of old guys," and I agree but when I tell him I'm sixty-one he calls me a kid and smiles, and I see he's got a couple of side teeth missing on top and it makes me trust him more and we laugh how his house built in 1907 is old for Los Angeles but in Italy it takes many hundreds of years or even a thousand or two to earn that title.
Every time there is a pause I think, are we done now, is this where I turn and walk away? But they are just beats, like in a Harold Pinter play, and there is still plenty more to say and he has nothing to do but be wherever he is, and I want to act like I have more than that, but really, I don't and he asks "what's your name again?" and I tell him and then I repeat his, which I only remember because he's black and told me two minutes ago. It's "Marc with a C" he says, and I tell him almost all the Marcs I know are with a C and he says "we're wonderful people" and I laugh and now I think this is not just a beat in the scene but the actual end of it, and I tell him it was nice talking to him, and head on my way. I'm not sure if we’ve become friends but we are a lot more friendly than we were ten minutes ago.
Why? Why did I do that? Why did I stop and stare at Marc until he noticed me? I think because I wanted to know. I want to know and be known. That's what I'm doing here, trying to know and be known-- even by squirrels.
Nope, not bored of these walk posts. If you wrote one every day, I’d read it every day.
Marc with a C here to say, we are quite alright ❤️- I think