12/30

Sneaking through neighborhoods.  Across backyards and around house sidewalks.  Avoiding windows.  Seeking out trees.  Bushes.  Swing sets.  Anything to obscure the view.  Anything to keep me invisible.

And I feel like a teenager.  This feels like something I did as a teenager.  Walking about the earth as if it was all mine.  Walking about as if there were no boundaries.  No conception of your side or my side.  No notion of: keep off.  

So I dart from this end of a porch to that end.  I hop this fence and push myself through that hedge.  But along the way I get this creeping sensation that I'm directionless.  That there is no true destination here.  Nothing more that lies ahead than behind.

This makes me pause.  By the bird feeder hanging from the pink magnolia tree, I pause and dig deep.  Prod and poke for an ember of reason.  An explanation as to why I'm moving.  Why I'm progressing through private properties.  

Then I lock eyes with a boy.  He stands in the living room by the sliding glass door.  Watching.  Observing.  His eyes are piercingly blue.  And nothing happens for a few moments.  There's no panic or fear.  No worry or trouble.  There's simply this boy and me.  Standing.  Breathing.  One outside and one in.  One older, one younger.  One guilty, one innocent.

Then he lifts his finger.  His arm comes up and he's pointing at me.  His mouth is moving and attention broadening and soon he's looking toward the kitchen, summoning someone.  

I'm gone by the time he looks back.  When his mother quizzically strolls up behind him, scanning the grounds for anything peculiar.  But there's nothing there.  Just another child excited by the great, big world.  

And another man lost in the maze of his existence.

Or in the maze of neighborhood backyards.