curiosities

This morning I had an early errand to run, and on my way through the quiet, residential neighborhood en route to my destination I was rather astounded to see a whole posse of cars parked in the vicinity of someone's home. It was 8:30 on a Saturday morning, and they were parked in the driveway, in the yard, and flanked the curbs on either side of the house. On my return home the cars will still there, and I did a quick count: 30!

It had to be a meeting of some kind, and I began to wonder what this sizeable gathering held in common such that they were meeting in someone’s home. A common interest with that number of people will often result in meeting in a place related to that interest: a church, club house, meeting room at an office building or even conference center. But someone’s home, on a Saturday morning? I thought someone might have died, but that was still a lot of cars for paying respects, and pretty early in the morning for such a size.

So I’m curious, and I suspect my curiosity will remain thus, since I don’t know anyone who lives on that street, and don’t feel quite compelled to go knock on their door and inquire just to satisfy my nosey need. But we do wonder about people, don’t we? When we’re at a restaurant and people are in a group, we wonder who they are, and how they’re connected. Or at the airport, where are people going, and why? I once felt inspired to write a novella when I got into a conversation with the two other women who shared a row of seats with me on a plane, and we shared our stories about what compelled our journey.

People are fascinating, for the most part, and we all have stories to tell. Now if only I could find someone to tell me the story about what all those people were doing at that house this morning…