Today he was wearing a shirt that read, "Solstice is the reason for the season".
He, being the SD hoop guy. He was smiling with his typical small crowd of onlookers and a few that were hula hooping. I watched as he beckoned passerbys in his usual carefree manner to participate.
I'd seen him a few times before, even hooped with him once. I said hello to him again, although I knew there was no reason to tell him I knew him. Once when I talked to him two days in a row and said so to him, he replied with, "Sorry, I'm an old man I don't remember things too well anymore."
Today, he taught me a trick.
I asked him why he loved hooping so much, and his response surprised me.
"Why do you do it then?" I inquired.
"I do it for my daughter."
Essentially I learned that his hooping career originated in honor of his daughter, a professional hooper (didn't know that was a thing) whom he hadn't seen in 30 years. Whether he did it in order to gain her acknowledgment from afar or to attract her attention so that she might come visit him again, I will never be entirely sure. Perhaps she was angry with him, perhaps she merely didn't have the time for his antics. Although I felt a mixture of sympathy and sadness for him, I could see he wholeheartedly appreciated the delight he brought to others. He cheerfully told me how he was able to help a girl missing an arm as well as an autistic boy learn how to hula hoop earlier that day.
I am always curious as to how he survives. Never does he ask for donations, as he prides himself in offering the only place one can hula hoop for free at. I don't get the feeling that he has a family supporting him and his brain seems to be mostly fried by drugs or whatever at this point. Yet he truly does have a gift for bringing joy to strangers and I see the community he draws in around him that may be the closest thing he has to a family.
Talking and hooping with him reminded me of my intrigue for people. I used to keep a record of my observations every time I went to this particular coffee shop because I knew I was bound to see or talk to someone of interest. I could always tell which ones were travelers and which ones were locals. Other instances with strangers stick out to me as well. I still remember the conversations I had with the drunk Irishman at the OB hostel who wanted to make a bean bag water slide all the way to the ocean, or the homeless man who in so many words asked to move in with me, or with the sweet Canadian girl in Santa Monica who also enjoyed making banana egg pancakes, or the many other people I have seen and never talked to that have merely impacted me from their outward appearance because I feel I can read their life story from the lines on their faces. Today was a good reminder to look up; I never know what I might see or who I might talk to.
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