Spring

My feet ache.

I left my place around 7 this morning and did not return until 2. Some of that was spent in Mo’s eating breakfast, some of it was spent at the temple; mostly, I was walking around Parkville, the West End, and parts of West Hartford. With such warm weather, I could not help myself.

Usually my Saturday morning consists of me going to bed around 6:30 after staying up to do my radio show. Getting up at that time when I’m not preparing for work is rare. Rather than fight it, I thought I’d take advantage of this headstart and have breakfast at Mo’s Midtown– a place so popular that I’ve eaten there only a handful of times, even though it’s less than a ten minute walk. I figured out recently that if I go early, I beat out the churchgoers and people trying to alleviate their hangovers.

As I walked toward Elizabeth Park, there were few cars and buses polluting the calm. It was still early. The birds were the loudest. I came across an abandoned snowball in the middle of a field. The snow had mostly melted off. I saw the occasional jogger or couple with their dog.

The greenhouse at Elizabeth Park is being prepared for the Spring flower show. I could smell the tulips by standing outside the cracked open windows.

People open. Less hurried. They don’t need to zip along to avoid frostbite anymore.

As I walked down Park Street, I heard a rooster crowing. I had not heard this sound since leaving my childhood home way out in the country. At first I assumed someone had a rooster crow recorded somehow and was blasting it. But I’d heard rumors of cockfighting in this area. It could be real. There was a crowd gathering. Next to the beauty supply store, on a pile of pallets, there it was. A rooster was, mean as ever, doing his equivalent of barking territorially at passersby who wanted nothing more than some hair product or nail polish. Knowing what roosters are capable of, I got myself mentally prepared to make a break for it if it made any sudden moves, like darting into traffic, across the street, and towards me. As I tried to walk calmly away, I passed more alarmed pedestrians, all wearing that look of disbelief that I had just moments earlier. Being a Good Samaritan, I walked down the street with a woman to point out to her exactly where that little beast was perched.

But this warm weather also ushers back in street harassment. Once it’s warm enough to casually bike, walk, or roll down the windows, all bets are off. In the past 24 hours, I had three strangers direct inappropriate comments at me while I was on foot. A teenager on a bicycle informed me that I would be going home with him. I can’t make this stuff up. I wanted to add “so that I can tell your mother that you’re harassing women twice your age,” but I pretended not to understand what he said to me. In my head, this works, this pretending to not speak the language. It prevents nothing, but without being acknowledged verbally, through gestures, or through facial expressions, it seems to stop.

The other two incidents? While walking past a gas station, a man in his twenties or early thirties came over to me to say hello and let me know that I was “looking good.” It’s laughable, really. All week, I spend time carefully picking out outfits, doing my hair, putting on makeup. Today, I don’t bother to do any of that, throwing on wrinkled jeans and a hoodie, and suddenly I’m hot shit. At least to the guys within a four block radius of where I live. The last incident was being yelled at by some dudes in an ugly car. My failure to smile was ruining their day or something. Because I exist to appease men I don’t know, I profusely apologized and slapped a grin on my face. Not.

The melting snow reveals things I would rather not see: broken glass, dimebags, bus tickets, McDonald’s pie boxes. It’s not all awful. The kids that play basketball at the church next door have begun their night games again. People take less harried walks with their dogs and are a bit friendlier. The air is less clogged with exhaust fumes. Stepping in a puddle does not result in instant hypothermia. I don’t have to walk on Sisson Avenue anymore because the Wood-n-Tap parking lot plowers put snow banks onto the sidewalk.