May 4, 2016 | One of the many things I dabble in is the art of people watching. I'm not talking about celebrity stalking, or, heaven forbid, the Peeping Tom sort of illegal activity.
I prefer to think of people watching in educational terms - the study of social behavior. My college anthropology professor would be proud to find his lectures have stuck with me all these years.
Now that I have allayed any fears about being a creeper, if you put me in a crowded place and let me sit off to the side, I'll be quite content to stay there for a while and people watch. Yesterday was a perfect example of my kind of people watching. My husband and I traveled to Orlando, Florida, this week so he could attend a conference for work, and I could lounge around by the pool--or write a story--or proofread a friend's new novel. It ended up I multi-tasked and sat by the pool while I proofread the novel.
Yesterday afternoon, conference festivities took us to The Magic Kingdom. I'm very well-versed in the goings-on at Disneyland in California, but I've only been to Disney World one other time in my life. I quickly deduced that many of the attractions were generally the same, yet existed on a grander scale in Florida, which made sense when I paused to compare "Land" to "World".
As at Disneyland, there is no shortage of interesting characters to people-watch at DisneyWorld, and I'm not talking about the costumed villains, princes, and princesses who run amok in Fantasyland. I'm talking about the regular, everyday, human-type of average folk who are running amok. Station me on a bench on Main Street U.S.A. and I'll fashion a full-length feature of a story in the time it takes you to run from Space Mountain to Splash Mountain to use your Fast Pass before it expires.
People are interesting to me. If they're speaking a language undecipherable to me, it's fun to watch the dialogue unfold and guess at what they may be saying to one another. If they're speaking English loudly enough to be heard by someone sitting on a bench nearby, I'm not above listening, if it's entertaining. And the varied forms of fashion one sees on Main Street? They compete with anything you might see on cable TV.
But, I must say, the best people to watch are the ones who aren't saying anything at all. For instance, when I see someone passing by, cutting through the crowd with steely determination, I can't help but wonder who they're looking for, or where they're headed that could be so important, and my imagination takes off on a sinister tale of intrigue.
Yesterday, I watched a young woman searching the crowded sidewalk for someone. Suddenly, she ducked her head and darted into The Confectionery. Avoidance! Awesome! I watched as she pretended to shop until the culprit passed by and then she came back out onto the street and hurried the opposite way. I couldn't help it. Another story wove its way through my mind, of love scorned and hearts broken and the awkwardness of running into an ex at the happiest place on earth.
People cross to the other side of the street without apparent cause. Why do they do this? Or they abruptly stop and pivot to return the way they came. Did they leave someone behind? Lose a child? Forget where they parked? Leave their cell phone under the bench of the pink boat at It's a Small World?
People are interesting characters, even without the Mickey ears. I've people-watched in Jerusalem's Old City, on the Rue Mont Blanc in Paris, at the Gum Wall in Seattle, and King's Cross Station in London. It doesn't matter the country. Why?
Because human beings are fascinating, across the land and around the world. Definitely worth the watching.
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