Suburban NJ

I wandered the streets for a brief half hour the other day. It was a cloudy Friday afternoon, everyone was most likely sitting at home in a turkey induced coma with a dose of pie sugar shock. The wind was blowing hard, and I could count the number of people out and about with my two hands. The clouds rolled lazily by, and cars swooshed by every now and then, sparse enough that a quick stride got me across the street safely.

To one side of the street, though the road would lead to the glamor of NYC, the stretch that I walked down was barren. A suburban wasteland of quiet and the absence of human existence apart from the random houses with abandoned porches and weed-overgrown lawns. A little further down, one side of the street was paved with green tennis ball sized fruits of some sort, with wrinkly appearances. The insides looked kind of like many pine cone seeds smooshed together to form the globes that littered the streets. They just as dry as pine cones. The side that I walked down had acorns scattered around the sidewalk and grass, but I didn't catch any squirrels hunting for their storage goods. Maybe the onset of winter has beckoned them to their cozy shacks in the hollows of the shivering trees.

After a good ten minutes, I about-faced to catch the other side of this road, the side that did not lead to the city, but to the glitz of suburban life, strip malls paved throughout the country roads, where parking was in surplus. Down that side, cars were more abundant, and the stores were a mite more intriguing than the empty warehouses and sad houses that I had already passed. I stopped in at a minimart to take a look for my toothpaste, but didn't find it. The people glanced quickly and went back to their business. They could sense my hesitation before I even stepped inside. The way back was much quicker, because familiarity hastens all processes. I walked at a slower pace to cool down.

Down the street of townhouses, the wind intensified four fold, and leaning into it, I could almost stand at a 45 degree angle without worrying about scratching up my face. I looked around briefly at the greyness and dull landscape. Here, I didn't have to worry about the world collapsing around me. Here, I didn't have to worry about life passing me by. Here, everything stopped momentarily for me to catch my breath. Unfortunately, time stops for no one in the end, so it's about time to get back into the city.