everything that people crave

 

On the way to work yesterday I passed a very tall Mailman that I didn’t recognize. He kept his eyes straight ahead and did not acknowledge me  even though we passed very close to one another. Then I spotted the earbuds. O, I get it.

That’s the way it is these days, I guess. Just as he passed me, I heard a woodpecker knocking in the distance.

Bird sounds have been my companions on my walks to work lately even before spring break.

Later on this same walk a young college student approached me, smiling. She was wearing luminescent green tennis shoes.

She stopped in front of me and asked me my name.

I said,” Steve.”

She handed me  a note and said “I’m going to be praying for you today.”

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I thanked her.

As she walked away I said, “Nice shoes.”

“Thank you,” she said.

I leave my coat and shoes on the floor outside the dance studio. The dance floor is one that needs special consideration like not wearing street shoes to walk on it.

As I sat down to play, I realized that I was missing the note the student had handed me. I looked all around but couldn’t find it. I put it out of my mind.

After class, I found it laying near my coat and shoes. A $20 bill appeared to have fallen out of it.

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Later when I was telling my wife and Rhonda about this, they insisted  that student thought I was a homeless person. “Look at your coat,” my wife said, “it’s ragged.”

Could be.

thisworldisfading

2 thoughts on “everything that people crave

  1. While I agree the homelessman theory is possible, I had more questions than answers. Did she single you out beforehand because of how you looked, or was she walking around looking for something more abstract, or waiting for light to strike someone in a certain way, and then she would know? Only the green-shoed lady knows. All we can say for certain is that you were Chosen, right? Why, is usually a mystery… BTW, I’m pretty sure there’s a Flannery O’Connor story about being chosen, though I don’t remember it well, and that character was probably at least half crazy. Wise Blood I’m sure I read, but in college.

  2. I think you’re on to something. I may be living in a Flannery O’Connor story transposed to Holland Michigan.

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