Unexpectedly Muppetized

Tamie and I are dog walkers, though not in any professional sense. Rupert, our five-year-old dog, doesn’t seem to mind. We’ve been guiding him around the neighborhood his entire life, often multiple times a day. Before Rupert, we spent a decade charting routes with his predecessor, Ivan. And someday, in a distant and less slobbery future, we’ll continue the practice sans dog. At which point, I guess, we’ll just be walkers.

What started as a necessary chore has become something more cherished. We’ve come to love our thirty-plus minutes of focused conversations: no phones, no internet, no TV. Sun, misty rain, breezy rain, snowy rain, regular Seattle rain. It doesn’t matter. The sidewalks are where we discuss our day, plan the weeks ahead, and attempt to calm the frenzied motion of our lives.

The sidewalks are also where, over time, simple head nods have turned strangers into a parade of friendly faces.

There’s a Sesame Street song called People in Your Neighborhood that introduces the everyday folk who help shape a community – a teacher, a plumber, a librarian, a florist, an electrician, a dentist and their patient. Each has their own upbeat verse, sometimes earnest, usually silly, always informative. It’s a Muppet-led reminder that a neighborhood isn’t just a place; it’s a diverse collection of zigzagging lives, woven together by ordinary moments.

In that spirit, Tamie and I began imagining new verses for the people we passed each day. There are the two women in fluorescent vests who prudently rig a pool noodle between them for pandemic distancing. There’s the man who scooters past us every Tuesday and Thursday on his way to tai chi, and the couple with three young children who seem perpetually late for something. And then there’s the elderly man with the pull-behind suitcase. We used to see him all over the area, then only nearby, then with a walker, and then, sadly, not at all. He’s still our favorite verse.

Yesterday, a car stopped beside us mid-walk. The driver rolled down her window to say she always watches for us on her commute and how much she loves seeing whatever stick, branch, or small tree our dog is hauling around. As she smiled and drove away, it dawned on us: we are the People in Her Neighborhood. The ones who nod back, offer a familiar hello, and add a spark of unexpected joy to her day. We are her everyday folk who make this place feel like home.

It’s a lot of responsibility.