Pinwheels

I realized I actually had a story about pinwheels to share.

I've always loved them; pinwheels are shiny, brightly colored, distracting, and send me right back to days when I was five years old and slighly more carefree than I am today. I like the memories I have associated with them. Generally summer, often the Fourth of July. Much like a little firework in my hand, but less alarming than Reservation-quality sparklers, pinwheels were mesmerizing and altogether a good experience. I was that kid who put stuff in her mouth long after she was old enough to know better. I like to blame this on my kinesthetic learning style, and sometimes I like to blame my kinisthetic learning style on this. I'm circular and nonsensical like that. Pinwheels are usually made of that tinny foil, folded and pinned together in the center and when they're going remind me of perpetual motion, or those experiments where mirrors angled slightly proceed into infinity as they reflect each other. Not that they are similar in any way, but perhaps are linked in my mind by the proximity of time by which I started thinking about such things.

Last week, this adorable couple was walking their small sweater-clad dog down the street, and they stopped for a moment and bent down to the ground right outside my kitchen window. My roomie and I were in a discussion about some topic, and I was doing dishes and getting myself a drink. I think we may have been trying to close windows with little success, because my hand was on the dusty metal of the apartment window slider as I watched these people walk by, then pause at our patch of sidewalk. The guy stood up, and where he had be crouched, a sparkly little pinwheel flashed in the sun. I nearly ripped the window open and yelled at them "thanks, we love pinwheels!" but I'm working on being thought of as less insane by my neighbors. So I contained myself. There on the side of the road with nothing growing near it, was now our own little metal flower, a bright little pinwheel facing the street. That's fair, for these things were meant to be shared, and I don't need to be the only one enjoying its shiny little face.

Two days later, a jeep was parked next to the pinwheel, and generally blocking it from view, which I didn't think much of, because I tend to be fairly exhausted when I come home from making a few thousand pastries, and I barely registered its presence as I went about my way in the kitchen. Then I saw some lady fiddling with something on the street, and my eyes went back to the same patch of sidewalk. As she walked away, proud, I could see that she had turned the pinwheel so now people walking down the sidewalk could enjoy it.

I was so thrilled to have someone else on this planet take almost as much interest in the shiny spinning inanimate object as myself. Gold stars for that lady.

Things like this happen in Portland all the time, and they make my day every time.