Somewhere in the Springtime
Connie
She walked through the cobbled street, stepping on each stone with particular thought and care, noting the rough domes peeking through the soles of her worn pumps, tracing the ball of her feet over each individual rock. She moved slowly, still moseying forward in her usual, utopian manner, as if she were a feather floating in the breeze; rhythmically dancing along the path, aimless and yet so contentedly purposeful, enviably free.
After a few moments she raised her gaze up from that cobblestone floor, tilting her head towards the buildings overhead – houses mostly. An inquisitive girl, she was feeling almost obliged to peer into the windows of the homes. And peer she did.
Eyes wide open like camera shutters, recording, observing, watching, without judgment nor haughtiness, simply seeing, truly seeing.
In number 24 an old woman stood over the stovetop, wiping beads of sweat from her forehead with a small, striped kerchief as she mindlessly stirred a tarnished, brown pot, staring down at muted salmon espadrilles, a mother, perhaps, a wife most likely, a domestic lady certainly.
The girl soon grew tired and switched her lens to next door, this time viewing a young man at his desk, a rickety, old typewriter making tired and infrequent clickety-clacks. Seeing his face, one could not misread his frustration, hurled over a small, dark oak chair with a furrowed brow, surrounded by crumpled up sheets of paper, a starving artist? Maybe. Or perhaps he was merely writing a letter, not prose. The girl could not quite decide, and I suppose she didn’t have to.
She walked on, contented yet, drifting her same drift, this narrator cannot help but admire the beauty in her self-assured fulfilment, unchanged and untainted by life.
A few more moments lingered on, seemingly clinging to the humid air, she’d walked till the houses were out of view and the residents out of mind, till she reached a lone rusted, white bench slotted between the greenery.
There our girl sat, I could not tell you for how long, nor what she thought of. But I can tell you how painfully peaceful she looked, her mouth ever so slightly upturned on each corner, hair playing in the soft sunlight, those same worn-out pumps adorning her feet. And she didn’t seem to have anything bothering her, no one thing particularly hanging on her the walls of her mind, how much I wish I could see it all again.
Such a strangely familiar and warm feeling, one I seem to have lost, now and again I think of her and cling to the hope. The simplicity which I so crave. The so highly undervalued moments of true peace we find, so fleeting and small, and yet so powerful.