I see her for years — maybe six or seven. She goes from around 12 to adulthood

I’m looking through some quotes for a writing class, and this one gives me pause:

“Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.” —Orson Scott Card

I laugh.

Walk past stories? They’re walking past me, a hundred a day.

In the big picture window that comprises a wall of my living room, I watch a community pass. My porch is at the confluence of a shul, school, park, and major thoroughfare. People march, slouch, bounce by. A man walks a dog. A dog walks a man. Children run after geese. Grown women avoid the birds. A kid falls unnoticed. A girl walks on the outskirts of a gaggle.

Weekdays I don’t have all that time to sit and stare. But I see enough, especially on Shabbos.

Right there through my living room window, I watch a girl grow up.

I see her for years — maybe six or seven. She goes from around 12 to adulthood.

I don’t know her name, or who she is.