Observations: Kindness

A man sits on everything he owns. It is piled in a cluster directly between 1st and 2nd Avenue at Pike Street. He holds a stick with an attached string dangling a piece of cardboard that reads, "Fishing for Kindness."


I stood at Virginia Street this morning waiting for my transfer. I was reading and drinking tea, when I heard a sharp, "Get out the road, pidge!" A small, middle-aged woman, no taller than 5 feet and with thick glasses that magnified her eyes, stood to my left. She stared at the intersection where a pigeon sat in the first lane. We both watched cars approach the bird.

I looked down. I closed my eyes and waiting for the stomach-churning crunch, but when the traffic cleared, the pigeon still sat there, unfazed and unconcerned. The woman seemed angry with it; she stomped to the edge of the sidewalk and looked up the road: no cars. She continued to stomp to the bird and gave it a nudge with her foot. Cars were beginning to stream a block away. Looking up, she saw them and looked at the bird again.

In one movement, she swooped down and grabbed feathers, like picking up a kitten by the scruff of its neck. The bird's wings opened and shed small, cushiony feathers. In a parabola, the bird went up into the woman's grasp then smoothly down on the curb in a solid plop from her shuffling steps.

Snuggled back into its nesting position, the pigeon simply went back to occasionally glancing around. The woman looked at the bird, still. She leaned down and ran her fingers down its back a few times, smoothing over any stray feathers. A bus stopped at the curb. She gave the bird a few pats on the top of its head and, in several quick leaps, got on the bus.


A man sits on everything he owns. He is leaning against a building, holding his stick. He is not begging; he is not even asking. People gather around him, and they are talking with him and laughing and motioning with their hands. He is just fishing, and it is a good day.