I won’t be staring, honest. I won’t be looking up your personal records or sitting outside your home. The camera is turned off.

But I like to people watch. It could be seeing you drive by in your late-model Honda Civic loaded with garbage and wondering what your story is. Or the lady pushing a shopping cart muttering to herself. It could be the family in line with multiple piercings and new ways to display their bras.

I watch your reaction when your kids scream in the store or when your first reaction is to threaten to beat them. I’m amused when I notice you groping each other in the store. I marvel when I see an older couple moving slowly along sidewalk, both holding hands. And smiling.

It could be the lady who stepped forward to help another distraught mother in church, the man who stopped to help pick up the fallen groceries. I’ve seen people at their best and their worst, while doing my best to make sure I am not passing judgment.

People fascinate me. They always have. I think it stems from sitting with my mom many nights in the Vagabond restaurant in Forks, Wash. We would both sit in a tattered red booth, nursing sodas and observing. It sure beat cable television.

Maybe it’s no accident she had an extensive newspaper background and I eventually headed toward journalism.

For whatever the reason, it’s made me a better person. It’s helped me to slow down and look for the person who needs help. To read their countenance and realize they might need an extra smile or pat on the back.

So if it’s all the same to you, I’ll keep watching.

And learning.