It's a shame I only walk the few blocks downtown when there's a St. Pat's Day parade. It's urban from the suburban, humanity from sterility.
It's stimulating. There are the people sitting at stools in a bistro with whom you feel oddly intimate, their drink and food choices a pane of glass away. There are the shop windows aglitter with handsome watches. There are the shadowy alleyways and the steam-ventish scent in the streets that smells of wistful, reminding me of New York City.
I loved seeing the children flock to the scattered candies. It was electric, the way they appeared out of nowhere, hidden by the trunks of their parents until all fly to the street and gather golden chocolate coins. How natural to see them flock to sweetness, without airs or shyness or hesitation!
St. Patrick himself led the parade, and he sure looked the part. He blessed us as he went by and it was fitting the sacred lead the secular. Cars and walkers strode by afterwards, Happy-St. Patrick'ing and waving us to death. One said, "be proud to be Irish!".
The high point is when the pipers come by and played their stirring tunes. Every year they sound better.
On the walk back the tune "Down by the Salley Garden" came to mind unbidden...
Down by the salley gardens
My love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens
With little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy,
As the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish,
With her would not agree.
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