Oy, my aching back

Out for a walk

Deerfield Beach, FL,

December 2008

Time moves slowly in this retirement community, filled with folks who, free from the constraints of the 9-to-5 world, seem to follow a different timeline than the rest of us.

Breakfast is lingered over, conversations by the community pool can drag on well past lunch, dinner is often done before the outside world's equivalent of rush hour, and bedtime may or may not compete with an early sundown. That last one depends on whether the guy who played the bartender on the Love Boat is scheduled to play the community auditorium tonight.

I'm not sure if this woman was a fan of Isaac "Boom Boom" Washington, so I never found out if she had tickets for that night's show. I am, however, certain she didn't know I was there as she shuffled along the sun-baked asphalt after dropping off her day's recycling. So I felt a little voyeuristic in taking this picture. But just a little. Because life here is different than it is elsewhere. Sometimes poignantly so.

Part of me felt that whoever this woman was and whatever stories her life may or may not have held, a photo might make us wonder a little more about the strangers among us.

Yes, I'm an odd one.

Your turn: Taking photos of strangers. Please discuss.

One more thing: What does this have to do with chaos? On the surface, not a whole lot. But dig a little deeper, and I suspect this is my way of calming things down after a week that offered more than its fair share of unscheduled chaos - from brutal kidnappings in Cleveland to a spiralling death toll from a garment factory collapse in Bangladesh and a young father's sudden disappearance not far from here. A quiet view of a place where the outside world seems so very far away seemed like a great way to lower the volume and restore a sense of balance. Head here for more Thematic chaotic.