People Watching to Perfection

There is a certain simple pleasure in my life that even though one might think is an idle pastime, I have encountered a plethora of experiences and emotions that I may not of ever had the gratification of coming into contact with.  I admit that I am a full-fledged, bona fide, card-carrying member of the people watchers society and darn proud of it.

My hobby, as it may, was started innocently enough.  My father, who would wait as my mother shopped, groomed me in the finer points of people watching.  Rule 1: never let the people you are watching catch you watching them.  Rule 2: there are no other rules.  It was fun sitting there with my dad, sizing up the various people walking by and wondering where they had been, where they were going, what did they have in their shopping bags, what were they thinking when they got dressed the way they did this morning (no, those stripes do not make you look thinner!) and why was everyone in such a hurry? I also learned that it can be almost as much fun watching people watch other people and only imagine what their eyes are seeing.

When I was in college, with not much cash and way too much time on my hands, I would sit in a coffee house and be entertained for hours on end for just the price of a double hot chocolate (which was less than a dollar back then).  Watching people come and go, living their lives, was fuel for my imagination.  I would concoct stories about the people I observed.  They lived in absurd situations that I dreamed up with mostly inconvenient or impractical endings.  I would match the handsome, genteel barista with the shy, unassuming bookworm sitting in the corner.  Star-crossed lovers that should never have met.  Two people from different backgrounds but with a single glance their passion flared.  The anticipation of her arrival during his morning shift with her usual order of Grande caffé mocha, with low fat milk and extra whipped cream (given, with desire filling every inch of his being, at the price of a small sized drink) was the tie that bound them.  Yet, it was a love that would go unfulfilled.  It seemed like sometimes I was living in a soap opera, with all these great sub-plots that were going on around me.  Amazing that I found time to go to school at all.

People watching is one of those great things that you can do if you have 5 minutes or 5 hours.  You can gander the homosapien in all their resplendent glory in restaurants, at the mall or an amusement park, during a party or at the beach… anywhere there is life abounding.  Moms chatting as they maneuver their baby carriages through the crowd, men with too small of shirt, women with too high of heels, big hair, no hair, too much body hair, city sophisticate, country cousin, filthy rich, dirt poor, young and sassy, old and frisky, fashion “do’s” and “do not’s” – the cast of characters goes on and on.  I even realized, long ago, that I, too, am a character for fellow people watchers stories.

I am sure that there are real stories behind each face that I see, but I will never know what they might be.  I just know that I smile when I see older people holding hands, almost laugh out loud as I watch a kid tackle an ice cream cone, feel pain when I see someone crying and am grateful that I have my sight, for that would be one sense that would be very difficult to not have.

Cynthia A. McClelland, curious observer of the obvious with interpretations of the oddities of daily life.  Mother, wife and lover of the furry, resides in the north Lake Tahoe area.       

Cynthia A. McClelland © 2003-