This morning, after a month of near total isolation, bouts of grief and sadness and sometimes fear, joy and grace came to me from a surprising source.
I am currently house- and cat-sitting in Traverse City’s Central Neighborhood, less than a mile south of downtown. Homes here were built between the 1920s and 1940s and are on small urban lots with garages in back off an alley, sidewalks in front, and big old oak and maple trees, still bare. A small wooded area is about a block away on the campus of the former Traverse City State Hospital, now transitioning to a condo, retail, and office development. The sprawling campus of Munson Medical Center, the big regional hospital, is five blocks northwest. It’s made-for-TV Middle America.
Last week I moved my workspace from the dining room table, which has a view of the side of a neighbor’s house about 15 feet away, to the living room, where I use a small table as a desk and look out to the sidewalks and street and have lots of daylight. Directly across the street is a house with a big picture window, two parents, one tween-aged daughter, and an adorable dog who gets on the furniture and looks out the window. Next to them is a woman who looks to be well into her 80s. We are properly isolated from each other and have not met.
This affluent neighborhood’s proximity to Munson and the grove of trees where some of Traverse City’s homeless congregate makes for some diverse foot traffic. My friend Kevin, who owns the house and the cat, was woken up late one February night by a guy wearing only his underwear and looking for help; he had walked away from Munson and the police were looking for him. Men I assume are homeless and sheltering in the woods go by a couple of times a day. And I see the nice couple walking their adorable dog, their tween outside doodling on the sidewalk with her colored chalk, and the elderly lady getting her mail. Other neighbors walk or bike or jog by.
Earlier today I was sitting at my little table working. A scruffy guy, probably one of the homeless men from the woods, was on the sidewalk across the street. He was wearing big boots, dirty jeans, and layers of coats and sweatshirts. His hair and beard were long and not in a groovy hipster way. He stopped in front of the elderly lady’s house for a minute, and I watched with the kind of suspicion that privileged white ladies have toward potentially creepy homeless people. He walked down the street out of my view, then back in, and stopped again in front of the elderly lady’s house. I watched.
And he started to hopscotch.
The tween had made a chalk hopscotch game on the sidewalk from her house to the elderly lady’s and across the street on the next block. At the end of the hopscotch game was a spiral where players are to spin around. After he ran the hopscotch gauntlet, the scruffy homeless guy spun a couple of times and went on his way down the street toward the woods. I smiled and laughed more than I have at almost anything in the last month, with genuine joy you can’t get from even the best cat video.
I wish you your own moments of joy and grace this week.
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