In the Home Depot Parking Lot, a Young Man with His Phone in His Hands, Watched Something in the Sky Moving Above Him and He Took Pictures. I Looked Up. The Late Afternoon Sky Was Alive with Flocks of Birds. He Said He Loved Watching Birds.
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The refrigerator/ freezer in our garage stopped working. We talked about it. We decided to get a new refrigerator/freezer for our kitchen, move the kitchen one to the garage and the one in the garage to the street for curbside service for the metal mongers who patrolled the neighborhood on trash day.
We headed to Home Depot and bought the one recommended for our kitchen. It was delivered in a week. It did not fit the space in the kitchen well and back it went. The next day we went to Home Depot again.
It was late Saturday afternoon, and we were very tired as we had worked hard to get everything absolutely ready for the now second refrigerator/freezer delivery, whenever that was to be, but hopefully soon.
At Home Depot, we parked, by habit, where there were few cars so it would be easy to leave the parking space. Near where we parked, a pleasant looking young man leaned against the railing around where customers deposited their shopping carts and large lumber trolleys after use. The young man had his phone in his hands. He was looking into the sky, this way, and that way, and all around. He was watching something moving above him, and with the camera of his phone, he took pictures. I looked up and saw the sky alive with flocks of birds, flying in a formation of their own making, turning, pivoting this way and that, a beautiful ballet of motions.
“You like taking pictures of the birds,” I asked. And he said yes, still looking towards the sky. “I love watching birds”. I had never heard a man say this before. I said I also loved watching birds. I spoke of the crows – who when I was young, I was told they were always up to something – how sometimes near the coming evening, around where I lived, I would see small flocks of crows – such beautiful pure shiny black against the blue and red of the late afternoon sun – winging their way towards the east of us, to where I did not know.
He asked where I lived and I told him, and he seemed to make a mental note of it as he also did not seem to know exactly where that was, even though it was just about six miles away. Perhaps in his mind he was thinking that is where he might see flocks of crows – though the correct term for a flock of crows is a “murder of crows” which seems odd and strange, and why they are named this, I do not know, but perhaps it has something to do with why I was told they are always up to something. I did not share this random little bit of trivia with him.
I told him how I love taking photos of the seagulls at the beach – hence the featured photo – and described how the seagulls take off and fly and wheel around you not really very high and then when they settle down, you follow them and sit as close to them as possible on the sun-warmed sand and wait for a dog or an energetic boy to disturb them with a charge of joy or over excitement. The seagulls then take off spreading their great wings, not panicked or frightened, but just part of the game they play and seem to enjoy, with the goal of spying morsels of food to be snatched away.
He said he had never been to the beach here to see the birds. I told him he should, as he would enjoy it. And then I saw my wife ahead walking towards the entrance to the Home Depot in the distance. I knew then I should leave the conversation with the young man and catch up with my wife, knowing I could talk to him for at least fifteen minutes more if I was by myself, and knowing if I left, I would always regret not naturally finishing or completing the conversation. And … then I knew that I would write about this encounter, completing and sorting out this conversation within my heart and mind and exploring the thoughts that were already deepening within me.
For I was concerned about this pleasant looking seemingly gentle young man graced with a quiet pursuit of watching birds. I was concerned for even though he did not have a detectable strong accent, he could be taken for Hispanic, for already the week before three casual day workers at this Home Depot had been snatched away by ICE.
And I as I considered the issue, I realized that the masked ICE agents were way more wolf-like in meeting their daily arrest quotas of the “illegal criminal immigrant” than in understanding that many of those taken in their dragnet approach are citizens or here legally – children also taken just in case they were quota worthy – the only true worth by which it seems the agents judged “Hispanic looking immigrants” regardless of age or gender or demeanor – all this planed and sanctioned and pushed by government design. Perhaps this gentle, sensitive young man was himself quota worthy. I did not know.
But in light of the deepening darkness and fear that has descended upon our country, I hope, and I pray, that at least among some of the face-shrouded ICE agents, that the Lord, with the light of His presence, would touch the darkness and deadness within their consciences and minds, a product of putting their daily arrest quotas ahead of justice and the law and the lives of millions – and that some would turn away from this work.
As I walked away towards the Home Depot entrance, I tried to assure myself of this young man’s safety. I reasoned he wouldn’t be in a known dangerous snatching field such as a Home Depot parking lot, if he had concerns and yet… It seemed he hadn’t been here for very long and he did not really seem to know where I actually lived… And he had not been to the ocean here – a seemingly gentle young man in his twenties – who had never breathed in the fresh salted sea air as he sat on the sun-warmed sand and watched in quiet joy the seagulls wheeling along the shore and the pounding waves, with the beautiful sunlight glittering and reflecting upon the living waters. For many in our country now live in fear of just breathing freely within the communities they live.
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Moments of Seeing & Occasional Pieces – Writing In The Shade Of Trees
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Thank You Chris. Very poignant and relevant in these troubling times. These are the times when some people become traitors to truth and humanity. It is time for the writers and the artists and musicians to shine a light in the darkness of our current times. These are troubling times indeed.