An area is more than its landscape, more than its buildings, more than numbers in a survey.  The people are dynamic, are changing their enviroments, are creating.  

Yesterday the family and I went downtown to Colorado Springs.  I love to watch people and enjoy conversations with strangers on a regular basis, but I have always been shy about taking photos.  

I realized yesterday that my camera gave me a ticket to talk to anyone who looked interesting to me.  Halfway through the day, I was feeling enriched not only visually, but spiritually and emotionally.  I felt if there is a god or a goddess or some hermaphrodite up in the sky, he-she-it was surely smiling down on me.

This fabulous woman was the first one I noticed when we got to Acacia park.  She was strutting to the music, flinging her fabulous pink boa this way and that.  

 This lovely girl's mother said I could take her picture.  It was a joy to see her dancing away in the grass.

I met this man, who was panhandling the corner.  He asked me if I appreciated all I had.  Told him I did, because I almsot didn't have it.  He let me take his picture, but said it was worthless, because he was just a tramp. When I said "no one is just a tramp," he started to cry.

A very short while later he collapsed from too much drink.  I wanted to stroke his forehead to soothe him as I did my alcoholic mother.  We are really all part of the same family.  An ambulance took him away.  He probably will never get sober and will die soon.

 
These leaves in the coffee shop seem so human with their veins, their reaching up to the light.

These two friends, wearing furry hats, protest recent legislation regarding reproctive services.

A Unitarian reverend and her wife are a beautiful couple!

A young make-up artist from the UK, who is expecting her first child, a baby girl.  I was struck by her classical pose for the camera.

 

 As we walked to the van, we saw this beautiful woman with silk flowers in her hair.  She could've stepped out of a Renaissance painting, a Botticelli maiden.  I lobrf her wry smile and her strong sense of self.