Outside In

On the day I met Freddie, he was passing time looking out the window. He had noticed my walking around his neighborhood with a camera in my hand, and he wondered what I was up to. I told him that I was visiting a friend in San Francisco who was graduating from law school. I wanted to take some photographs as a momento of my trip. After chatting a bit, I asked him if he would like to have a photograph. He was agreeable and invited me upstairs. During our conversation, I learned that he had been house sitting all day for his mother. Waiting is a tedious job. You're stuck at one place. Time appears to stand still while the world on the outside keeps moving on, seemingly without you...that sinking feeling of being all dressed up and have no place to go. One thing I immediately noticed about Freddie was the long scar along his forearm. I was curious to know, but I wasn't sure if I were prepared for the answer he might give me. I could only speculate how he had gotten it. Was it a battle scar that is indicative of the hard road he had traveled? Or could it have been something more benign... perhaps, he had fallen off riding his bike as a little boy. Whatever the facts are, it will always be a constant reminder of what happened, a snapshot etched into one's mind. I had promised Freddie that I would send him his picture when I got back home. I am not sure if he had ever gotten it. I'd imagine that when a person looks at his own picture, it's like looking into a mirror. It's sort of a strange, out-of-the-body, experience. I wonder who he sees when he's outside looking in and not the other way around. As of this moment, I could still picture Freddie sitting by the window....looking out..waiting for the moment of his mother's return.