Hide and Seek
I saw a lad of eight or nine standing up, wedged in between some tightly clustered cedars that landscaped a retail building. It looked like he was taking a piss in the trees, which seemed a bit off because of a bright morning and the kid was in plain view.
Some fifty away, three other kids roughly his age were running away from him.
I didn’t know what to make of it all. I walked behind the pissing kid on my way to enter the retail building and I heard him counting…what?
THEY WERE PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK! It was barely 40 degrees on the Oregon Coast during the middle of a Pandemic and smoke from a nearby slash burn had infiltrated the town and gave everything a spooky ambiance like after a battle.
The kid finished counting and bolted out of the trees. I went into the store smiling. There is hope, you just have to observe it, and cultivate it.