Week 11: Observing & Describing

I walked the same path in my neighborhood three times. One speed walking, one normal walk, and one with my eyes half closed, not shut, just soft so I wouldn’t fall. I wanted to see what Georges Perec might have seen, the overlooked, the ordinary, the things that don’t ask to be noticed. What I noticed was a squirrel darted across the path, paused mid run, then vanished into a hedge. A man in a red hoodie is walking while talking into his earbuds. A crumpled flyer for a lost cat was pasted against a stop sign. The cat’s name was “Miso.” No one was rushing. No one was crying. No one was visibly angry. The air was still. The leaves didn’t move. A dog barked a few times, then stopped. A bike leaned against a tree, unlocked. It was in the afternoon, the light was soft and indirect. Shadows were short. The temperature was cool enough for a jacket but warm enough to unzip it halfway. I didn’t check my phone, just looked at my watch to count my steps. The sidewalk was cracked and uneven. One patch had tiny pebbles embedded like fossils. A tree’s bark was peeling in long, papery strips. A bench someone had on their front porch had chipped paint that revealed three layers: green, then blue, then rust. The questions I had to myself were

• What does the neighborhood remember?

• How many people walked this same path today and saw none of what I saw?

• Were people more outgoing and talked to each other?