Sun Rise
Having your camera at the right time
This conversation went something like,
"Hello, Aunt Karen?"
"What are you doing?"
Are you making supper?"
"Can I come over?"
"Can I come over and eat some of your supper?"
falltime
Kissed at the Bus Stop
Yesterday morning, I* got up early to get to a Lincoln Park elementary school math class (it's fun!) ... up before the sun to commute to the kids.
I was alone at the bus stop for only a few minutes before an elderly (oh so elderly) gentleman approached on his walker and sat next to me. We exchanged a smile ... and then a kiss. But I'll back up.
We talked about our ages. He guessed 11 years off (yay me!) and I guessed 15 years off (yay 95-year-old physically and mentally spry man!). We talked about what we do: I'm on my way to a math class, a requirement for my education at DePaul; he graduated from Northwestern in ... 1939! I asked him how long he practiced law, and he told me he still stops in the office (and my heart swelled and then ached a little, remembering my own father, whose work beckoned him years after retirement, and up until his early death).
At some point in our dark-morning, bus-stop conversation, he said he wanted to give me a kiss, so I let him - on the cheek of course (I am *very* good at deciphering dirty old man from sweet, charming, innocent man; he's the latter). We hugged, too. At another point in the minutes-long conversation, he asked for my hand. So we sat, at the bus stop, holding hands and chatting. "Your hands are so warm!" he told me.
He asked if I'm married, if I've been. When I told him no and no, he said "good!" I took that as a women-get-married-too-early-or-not-for-the-right-reasons answer, not a good-because-I-want-to-marry-you answer.
When he inquired further, and I told him I never met the *right* man and, happily, may never marry, he smiled and really looked at me with a glimmer that may have been there or I may have imagined, and said, "I like you!"
We sat, we talked, we held hands. We talked, we sat in silence, holding hands.
And then my bus came, and I leaned in and gave him another smack on the cheek ... and then I was off, to see the sun rise over the lake and hear those sweet fifth-graders sing The Star Spangled Banner again.
Days like this remind me sometimes maybe I'm just looking in the wrong direction: for love, for acceptance, for conversation, for the people who are what I admire in this world which may sometimes seem self-centered and unnatural.
David, thank you. You made more of an impression than you'd guess, a long-lasting impression for a four-minute, spontaneous encounter. All just for giving your self and being friendly.
*I've decided to start capitalizing.
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