The moment I saw it…

 

The morning walk to school involves three school campuses after two blocks of walking through Hamra;

• cross before the gas station
• share greetings with the book keeper at the butcher
• squeeze onto my part of the narrow sidewalk as other pass the other direction
• notice that the doucan isn’t open yet, and the young helper is waiting for the owner – again
• glad to see the bomb sniffing dog headed my way
• dodge two lanes of traffic

I pass the guard at the university gate, the length of the male dorm on the left with a parking lot, smoking area, and bookstore on the right.

Through another gate and down two steps is my entrance to a pre-K through 12th grade school. (Sister school or rival? Neither really as the teaching philosophy and curriculum are completely different between the two).

There is a short cut through the middle school building (where I am nearly knocked over as a boy, in his P.E. uniform comes tearing out of the door with three other identically clad shabob in pursuit.) Down some stairs, a steep hill, and several more sets of stairs puts me on the early year’s playground.

Traversing this space takes awareness and the ability to change course quickly. Three little people, just over two feet high, are lined up before me. A gaggle of girls begin running on my left, their trajectory plotting directly into my course if it is not altered and as I scoot a step to my left, I sashay around a little boy in a puffy red coat who has the strap of his lunch box firmly in his right hand and what look like another strap in his left hand, clutched even tighter.

The moment I saw it I knew I would be writing about it as my slice for today. As I pass I realize that he is clutching strips of textured rubber – a toy snake. I smile and think how to share this small moment.