frenzy of abundance

It's quiet here these days. A welcome feeling after the drama of the preceding weeks. Skies are dramatic and I'm slowly getting stuff done at my desk. And walking every morning.
     I started seriously brisk-walking eleven days ago and it took a full four of those days for my formerly sedentary body to stop aching. I've mostly left the camera and cellphone locked in the car as I walk the park. I am repelled by the handful of people who speak loudly on phones as they walk. Do we really care that so-and-so (whom we don't know) is a real bitch (maybe it's true) or that someone else had a good time at the party and the food was good?
     A teacher acquaintance told me that when a total cellphone ban was initiated at the high school, a wave of insecurity and worry permeated the atmosphere and the kids were all out of sorts for weeks.  I, too, have fallen under the spell of never leaving home without my phone. I well remember the days pre-cell when public phones (most of which didn't work) were the primary way to contact someone in an emergency. And how often there wasn't enough loose change to make the call. One day we picked up our seven year old granddaughter from the airport in Albuquerque and I forgot to call her mother to say she'd arrived safely. We drove for miles looking for a working public phone. When we found it, I had to use my credit card to make the call to Connecticut (no change) and the number somehow got caught in a loop. When the bill came, the one minute call had cost $40! Good riddance to those days.

observations
Graffiti has been removed from the park but is slowly creeping back in.

The guys who sleep on the park benches at night leave behind interesting litter. Interesting becauseI haven't seen a pack of Camel cigarettes in decades and it doesn't even resemble the cigarettes my father and uncles smoked.

lull
This mid/late summer time-stop between vacation and school (which starts in less than two weeks here) has a kind of finality about it. If I were in charge, classes wouldn't start until after Labor Day as they did when I was a child. The holiday was the delineation between lazy hot days and getting back to friends, classes, possibilities. New notebooks, pencils, crayons, bookbags, new fall clothes that couldn't wait for the first chilly days and which I inevitably wore too soon. In her book, The Classic Ten by Nancy MacDonell Smith, she writes, "every item of clothing has a narrative."
     In memoir, authors usually recall the exact thing they wore when an event, important or un, took place. I can still see the olive green pullover (the color that year) that came with a white double pom-pom removable collar. It was one of that season's so-called "novelty" sweaters -  made from some combo of acrylic Banlon wool, so that when I wore it during the first weeks of school I nearly passed out from the September Bronx heat. I do still get the urge to buy new notebooks when school supplies appear in stores and often feel at the end of summer that I'd like to toss out my entire wardrobe and start over. Instead, I'm culling books, handbags, yarns. When they're gone (soon I hope), I plan to not replace them.

note to locals: watch for a multi-person Stash of Everything sale coming soon!