I was two blocks from work and barely on time when a woman with a dog stopped abruptly in front of me and pointed at the sky. I was startled enough to ask, "What do you see?"
"The birds. They're migrating early."
And then she fell in step with me as though we had planned to walk together. In the course of two blocks, I learned about her sleeping habits, what she's learned with age, her hormonal imbalance that, even at 73, makes life unliveable without hormone replacement therapy. She stayed with me, stride for stride, and spoke in such a confessional, comfortable way I started to wonder if maybe I knew her- maybe I had met her before.
"This is my stop," I said.
"Oh, you live here?"
"No, I babysit here."
"Ah."
"Well, nice to meet you. What was your name?"
"Joyce."
"Have a great day, Joyce."
Joyce
___
At the end of the check out line at the grocery store, a woman with bright purple hair locked eyes with me for a moment. A smiled a little as I followed her out, noticing her monochrome outfit and her little heels. Her little attempts.
As we waited at the stoplight together, she smiled when I told her I liked her hair. I disappeared back into my podcast, but when the light turned she motioned to me. "Come on," she said.
"Do you live on this block?"
And in one block I learned that she had lived in the same apartment since 1974, when she bought her condo for $40,000. I asked her if the neighbourhood had changed much. "I don't know. I don't do anything. My husband and I watch TV. We get our pension. We don't go out. We don't know any neighbours." When we reached the front of her building, on the same block as mine, she asked, "Do you want to come up for coffee?"
With ice cream melting in my cart, I quickly brushed the invitation away, but would wonder later if maybe I should have. Maybe I should have.
"Maybe some other time, thank you. What was your name?"
"Bina. B-I-N-A."
"Nice to meet you, Bina."
Bina
___
This week we learned that our friend has an aggressive form of cancer. Stage 4. She was just getting her feet on the ground after a series of difficult years. Now, it seems, the ground will get kicked out from under her altogether.
There really aren't words, are there? So many complicated thoughts and feelings - none of them right. None of them worthy.
I wonder about the inconsistencies here. Who determines these things? I know the words are fate or fortune or chance, but they don't match the helplessness bound in not being able to understand why some of us might live and live and live... live until we're so isolated or starved for connection that we will talk to just about anyone who passes our way on the sidewalk. Some of us will live to sweat through our sheets at night long past menopause and watch reruns and reruns and reruns. Some of us are lucky enough to feel utterly bored with existing, while others will lose that chance just as they're beginning to live.
Angela