The Lady in the Hot Pink Pants

I opened the shades before sitting down and I just stood there, mesmerized by all the motion out there. One lady walking down the street was in an odd hurry, probably trying to avoid the neighbor across the street who was standing out in front of her house wearing bright pink pants. How embarrassing.

Frozen in front of the window, I could not stop watching all the people and their busy lives, wondering who they were and where they were going.

Kids were running in and out of the house, the one where the woman in the hot pink pants was standing earlier. What had the kids been doing inside all this time? And why did they choose to come outside now? Someone else just came out of the house, walked to the car and drove away. How many people live in that house? It’s a big house, but I guess not so big with that many people inside.

A young Mexican couple pushing a stroller came walking down the sidewalk. I really just assumed they were young. I couldn’t actually see them that well to guess their age. It didn’t really take much to guess that they were Mexican though. Pretty much everyone in the neighborhood was Mexican. Except me and the lady across the street in the hot pink pants. She’s Asian. I’m not. I’m white, I’m very white.

I should never have even been there, really. I had no business there. But I moved in anyway. The landlords lived right down stairs and they were nice enough. They put up an iron gate at the sidewalk to protect the stairs that lead up to the apartment. Safety first. They even washed the blood off my car the night a gang chased someone down and beat the shit out of him and threw him up against the side of my car. They were very considerate.

That apartment was a breeding ground for the many great discoveries I would make that year. Like Columbus, it was my Santa Maria. I discovered my love for sweet potato fries and my disdain for having roommates who are cuter than me. I discovered who my true friends were, the ones who would board that ship with me and sail into the unknown, searching for something greater.

Standing there in front of that window, I discovered the truth that deep inside me screamed for escape. The simple truth that I had lived all my life watching from the window and I was unsatisfied. I wanted to be out there, to be the one someone else watched and wondered about. To be the one who prompted movement and action in someone else.

I discovered that it was up to me, and only me, to make that move. And I did.   

…(TBT)