And I've been thinking and pondering and musing and wishing the thoughts were being transcribed immediately on a page. Not because such words matter or are always coherent. Just to remind myself I am alive to other people and responding more than ever to what might be seen as trivia, mundane, useless. So be it. i like to remember the any day may be significant...how spontaneous interchanges with strangers can matter. A smile here, a look there - that can pass for a conversation of sorts. Witness: The tall man with his high bicycle maneuvering to find a place for it in a subway car. The dirty back tire brushes and nearly touches my leg while I'm seated in the 'side' chair. Oh sorry he goes quickly, seeing the near scrape. At our mutual stop I stand and wave to him that he should disembark first (the better to leave a path for other passengers) but he smiles and urges me to go ahead. I smile back in thanks...I follow hi as he leaves the station.
Or fun times in my nearby Trader Joe, underground and doubtless smaller than most of the octobus chain outlets are. I'm looking for a product I was sure to find - humble thing, half a dozen eggs - and ask the crew member might he know where I could get this, even - horrors, break the rules that crew so not cut apart the dozens of dozen eggs packages so secure in their paper bondage packets. He move quickly to tell me he will try in the back room and voila he does so with good results. I say it is because I have so small a fridge. He smiles; I smile. I move on and then go for another product on my list. Where might that be, I implore him. He seems to like the challenge. But overall for a late afternoon visit to a public place this exchange represents something rare: I acknowledge his being and he responds. I thank him for his caring, his effort. We have had a meaningful exchange of no real consequence but the exchange is uplifting and he seems to agree. Good day, yes, you too, thanks for making it so, etc.
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