Friday, September 30, 2011

Privilege

Neat pink brick townhouses, excellent cool breezes fresh as a fountain really, rain-swept sidewalk underfoot, and happy little strawberry-blond cairn terrier trotting on the end of a shabby leash.
Don't think about shabby!
For this suburban neighborhood one must look affluent and neat. We have rules. Puffing up the hill, I'm seeing green lush gardens both one side and the other. Velvety smooth grass surrounds mulched beds of tidy plantings. Smells wonderfully fresh. New Yorker article said grass is a bad idea. Thorsten Veblen; conspicuous consumption. We're doomed et cetera.
Yes, think about doom why not.
Because I have to rein in this dog. A narrow-faced sleeveless-jerseyed young woman has appeared round the corner behind her sleek brown-and-white Springer spaniel. Cassie lunges and barks--ever the terrier--and I get glared at through tiny glinting rectangular spectacles.
Getting scowled at first thing in the morning; someone should do a study on that, get a grant, go on NPR, start what's-wrong-with-your-face trend.
Wait, I think it's been done.
Walk past church, one small red car parked in the driveway. A hundred years from now, throngs will huddle on the church steps. Don't know why; just see them there.
Trotting on past the harvest-ready big-leaved community garden--it is utopian here in many respects--down sidewalk towards home, around the last corner: I see a rabbit!! Tiny but tall-eared; that's no chipmunk. Baby rabbit runs, then freezes, indecisive. ("Run little rabbit! I would too!" cries the Pickett's charger). From behind, rabbit's tiny muscled running haunches move massively, like a miniature kangaroo's. It's about four houses away, and Cassie doesn't react.
I can see farther than my dog!!
Should I pull up that little green grass from the mulch at the front? Out of place, it's a weed. Oomph.
Careful on the steps, fumbling. I remembered my key!
Outside felt wonderfully cool; now indoors pleasantly warm. I'm home from my morning dog walk in a life of rare privilege in the doomed century in the bosom of a great empire.