She’s Setting Her Sights on Al

Tthe Boston Herald

I have to put on my glasses to see out the window these days. It's a sign of age, I know. Snooping probably is, too, but I've always done this. Lately I'm just enjoying it more. That's because Al lives across the street - Al and his wife Katherine. I don't see Katherine all that much. Most days she's at her daughter's, babysitting her granddaughter. Al is the one I see outside, no matter what the season, a whirling dervish powered by diehard batteries. He is in constant motion - shoveling, raking leaves, sweeping the driveway, cleaning the gutters, washing and vacuuming the house, the car, the dog. When he's not cleaning, he's planting or replanting or fixing something or walking with or without Katherine's dog, Dante.

I have yet to see Al stand still.

Today I watch as he shovels snow. He's not supposed to shovel. He had heart surgery a while back. But he doesn't call what he's doing shoveling. He calls it 'pushing the snow,' which changes everything, you know.

He's pushing the snow right now, though there's hardly any left on his driveway. But he has to do something because it's afternoon and his car is clean and there isn't any lawn to cut and if he pushes the snow just a little more, he'll be able to hit bare driveway.

Bare driveway is important to Al. His driveway is cleaner than my kitchen floor. If it weren't snow he was pushing, it would be leaves or dirt or dust. He is a man who would push dust off my driveway, if he ran out of dust on his.

He has to be on the move. Even when he takes a break he can't sit still. Right now he is plunked in the middle of his spankin' clean driveway, ostensibly to rest, but he is wrestling with the dog. If molecules were made like Al, nuclear fusion would have happened years ago.

I love watching this man. I love that's he's alive, because he came close, all those clogged arteries. I didn't know him then, and if I'd never known him I would have missed so much. I would have missed his constant, joyful vigor.

We had across-the-street neighbors before Al and Katherine moved in. But they kept to themselves, pretty much. They sent over tomatoes in August; we shared a snowblower in the winter. But it wasn't the same.

Al gives off a kind of pleasure that can be felt through a thick pane of glass. He walks his dog - excuse me Katherine's dog - a couple of miles every day. He never wanted the dog. Katherine begged for it and when he got it he swore it was her dog and her responsibility. But I've never seen Katherine walk Dante. And I've never seen a man so upset when a dog got hit by a car than Al was last spring when Dante raced across the street and got hurt. Dante is Katherine's dog. Katherine loves Dante. But so does Al. After my husband's open heart surgery, Al knocked on the door to assure the patient that there is life after a by-pass. The doctor had said no driving for six weeks. Al said, 'You'll be driving in half that time.’

The doctor said it would take three months to get back to normal. Al said, 'The doctor is crazy. You're going to feel great in a few days. You're going to feel better than you ever have.' And my husband did, spurred on by Al's cheerleading, plus his spaghetti and meatballs. He can cook, too. So can Katherine. They fed us often.

It's a funny thing. I can be working on the most interesting story, writing away, seemingly engrossed. But if there's a flicker of movement across the street, if the back door opens, if Al appears with or without Dante, I become riveted because I know what I will see:  Al playing with the dog.  Al chopping ice.  Al washing the garage windows in the middle of a deep freeze. Al happy and alive in the moment.

And watching him will make me happier than people at work watching other people at work have a right to be.