I've been known to claim that I can't leave my house without encountering what I consider a story. That's just a claim, the truth is that sometimes we have our eyes open to the outside world, other times we're so caught up in our "to do" list that we barely notice our surroundings. Knowing that I was going to be out of town I allowed myself a morning walking around Ballard, with my public eyes open. But it was one of those of days when I stayed on the outside, only imagining the lives on the other sides of the businesses.

I started at the Women's Imaging Center at Ballard Swedish for a mammogram. I wanted to pretend that everyone else checking in was also there for routine screening but there was something about the way that a young German woman's husband was resting his hand on her arm that worried me. It was as if he needed the comfort of her strength. In one of my other roles I facilitate a Writing Workshop at Cancer Lifeline's Greenlake Center. Almost all of the participants are women and almost all of them have had breast cancer. But it is never what defines them; not even part of their introductions. However it is one thing to write with women who hope that cancer remains firmly part of their past and another to be in a waiting room with women who are being fit into the schedule because of a suspicious mass.

Leaving Women's Imaging and the rest of the German woman's story unfinished I indulged myself by taking the elevator to the fifth floor - to the outer doors of the Ballard Family Childbirth Center. That's where I reported shortly after midnight on the first day of spring back in 1991, vying with two other women for hastily cleaned birthing suites. My husband had had a painful bone marrow biopsy earlier in the day so he took the bed until fleeing to the waiting room around the corner from the elevators to get some rest. I don't dare poke my head into the Childbirth Center because of security concerns anymore but over the years I've learned that the waiting room is still accessible. There has always been a thick photo album on the table with newborn shots of babies. I used to be able to find the Polaroid of my daughter, swaddled in tightest burrito fashion, her eyes open as usual. No photo album this time. It had to happen someday along with the new paint and carpet. After all it has been seventeen years.

I stand in the little room on the fifth floor with a love seat and two chairs and realize that its window lines up with the window of the northwest-most birthing room of the hospital's circular tower. We could have relayed information by signaling through the windows. It's not that I miss the man so much after fourteen years but I still miss having the other parent who would meet my eyes while we both watched our daughter growing up, and growing away from us.

I left the hospital thinking about the earlier days of Ballard when citizens could set out to raise money and buy land to site a hospital. How amazing that those "Knuckle Knockers" were able to raise some $1.5 million to start Ballard's hospital. These days it seems to take about five, six years of fundraising, planning, environmental studies and volunteer efforts to build a park on 10,000 square feet of unused land. It seems miraculous that anything manages to get built with public funds, especially those raised penny by penny.

The mocha from Dean's Espresso Express in the cafeterias started to awaken even more senses as I walked along Market Street. I watched people walking to work with their first coffees or waiting for a business to open. I wondered about each of their stories. What brought them to Ballard? What do clothes really tell us about a person, what do signs really tell us about a business? The Ballard Blossom door had a poster for a multicultural event on Queen Anne. The Intiman Theater's staging of the "The Diary of Anne Frank" was posted in the window of the Don Willis Furniture Store and a full-size movie poster for "The Other Bolyn Girl" was obscuring anything else in the storefront of Ballard Hair Salon.

Alone in the still-locked Ballard Hair Salon a woman was leaning her body toward the salon mirror, rolling her hair into individual curlers. Is she the woman who matches rescued pets with owners or collects clothing donations? Why the movie poster, is she a fan of historical fiction or Natalie Portman? How many life stories does she hear each day?

Looking into businesses from the outside I wished that I dared to go in to say, "Tell me your story." I would want to ask the barista who knows my name at Nervous Nellie's, the serious looking pastry chef at Caf/ Besalu, the hard-working Elena at Super Cuts. "Tell me your story," I wanted to say, but instead I kept walking along Market Street, trying to peer into other worlds from the sidewalk outside. Even when others share a few of their stories with us, we can never really know the secrets of their lives.

Peggy can be reached atlargeinballard@yahoo.com. She writes additional pieces at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/ballard.