The View From the Sidewalk - David Loftus

One of the things that keeps life worthwhile -- interesting, instructive, and fun -- is regularly changing your perspective . . . also known as getting out of a rut, seeing with new eyes, or just being in the moment.

It isn’t that hard to do if you put your mind to it. The world constantly presents us with new information, a different point of view, but only if we aren’t shut down inside our cocoon of a house and vehicle, plugged into an iPod, talking to the same people and playing over-designed video games on the computer, shouting “look at me!” while simultaneously pushing people away with a boom box or car stereo turned up full blast.

It can be as simple as walking down the street -- something a lot of people simply do not bother to do as often as they might. Even when they do, they keep their ear plastered to canned music or a cellular phone so they might just as well be somewhere else.

If you are used to seeing the city, even just your own immediate neighborhood, from the behind a windshield, it’s amazing how startling a simple thing like walking against the traffic on a one-way street can be. You’ll see an angle of the city you may never have seen before -- if you look up and take it in. One of the things I like to study when I’m outdoors are the shadows of things disappearing or already gone, such as an old faded piece of advertising on a brick wall or the outline of a demolished building as its remnants appear on the neighboring structure it used to be smack up against.

If you live with a dog that must regularly be walked, your pet will force you to see things you wouldn’t ordinarily notice, like the behavior of squirrels (VERY interesting to most dogs!) or the mere fact that a raccoon is tooling around your downtown area. Twice, I’ve seen a hummingbird in operation in the South Park Blocks of Portland, fairly early in the morning when I had to walk my toy fox terrier. I might not ever have noticed them if I had been striding to work, reading a book, or otherwise inside my head while tooling down the sidewalk.

Suburban neighborhoods, where I’ve occasionally had to travel by bus to get to play auditions, rehearsals, or short-term work as a standardized patient for a chiropractic college, are often dominated by automobile culture: sometimes they have no sidewalks at all, and I have to walk on the street or road with an eye out for the occasional vehicle, or on a sloped or muddy shoulder. I rarely see other people on foot in those areas, save for the occasional jogger or dog walker.

Another instructive sight available primarily to pedestrians is the appearance of the drivers in passing cars. You can get a two- to three-second glance at passing motorists, which is cut to half or less if you are driving in the opposite direction. It can be sobering to note how many tight, frustrated, angry, and discouraged faces pass you at the wheel of their vehicles. (Not to mention -- in a state which has outlawed the use of a cell phone while driving -- how many are yakking away on a mobile; I typically count between 1 in 10 and 1 in 4 who are doing that.)

Changing one’s perspective is not just seeing things differently; it’s making an effort to be different, too. The past two weeks I have not been working in an office because I have rehearsals for a children’s theater production of “Aladdin” from 10 to 2 (I’m playing the Genies) and performances of a grown-up production of “The King and I” four evenings and/or afternoons of the week.

So for at least half the week I’ve spent upwards of 12 hours at a suburban theater space either rehearsing, taking a break to rest, read, and write, or doing the makeup, costume, and declaiming bit. This means I have to take a city bus out to the theater in the morning and don’t get back home until nearly midnight, but it also means I don’t have to wear a nice shirt and necktie to “work.” So I’ve dug into my colorful and crazy wardrobe, including shirts and outfits I’ve collected over the years from Japan, Eastern Europe, and Africa.

Thursday morning I got off the bus and walked the few blocks to the theater in a smock-and-pantaloon suit from The Gambia that is striking for its diamond-shaped tie-dyed orange bull’s-eye on the chest, in a field of deep indigo. Passing motorists in Buicks, Cadillacs, and various types of SUV stared at me with expressions of puzzlement, bemusement, or what seemed to be just plain disapproval. Evidently they thought I was a weirdo.

If they were happy with their own lives with their houses and salaries and big cars, why couldn’t they spare a smile for the goofy person walking along the road? Why, I thought as I looked back at them, have you worked so hard to be just like everyone else, only more so?