A walk in the park

I was up walking by 6:30 this morning.  The park is cooler then and the world is different.

Gone are the teenagers swinging, three in a row, laughing and taking advantage of those last years the world lets them be kids.

Gone are the young mothers with their babies in the infant swings watching as their older children ride big wheels up and down the shady cross walks in the park.

Gone are the dog walkers with all their varied furry friends hoping vainly for the chance to run free and frolic with the squirrels making fun of them from the trees.

Instead there is the man who sleeps on a picnic table drinking beer out of a tall can as he loads up his shopping cart before setting off to collect cans around the neighborhood.

And there are young couples walking, the guys drinking coffee, the girls bundled up in over sized sweatshirts as they flirt and woo their way to health with dewy eyed freshness.

The die-hard environmentalists are out there plucking every tiny cigarette butt out of the grass with a paper napkin.  They also pick up the beer cans and chip bags and all the other stuff that would ruin the park for the rest of us if left untouched.

There are three crows, a  large one and two younger ones who watch me and discuss things in Crow I can't understand, and who don't even bother to fly away from me.

And there is me, one once gray-haired woman hobbling around the park on new orthotics with a phone breaking into the more natural sounds to announce whenever she has conquered another mile.