Exactly what I needed

Saturday, the day after I was wetting my pants over my complicated life, I got exactly what I needed: someone to challenge me. In yoga the day before, the teacher was asking us to be grateful for those people who challenge our choices, our life, our words, everything. You know who they are, sometimes our friends, our family or just people we meet in the laundromat. I had a friend coming over and she was going to spend the night on my couch. I rushed across the street to wash some sheets and towels for her impending arrival.

In the laundromat, there was a guy looking at me. He was very striking looking: Tall, white hair, tanned skin, bright blue eyes, in his 50's or 60's. I could tell by the way he was watching me that he was going to butt into my life. I quickly put my clothes in the washer and headed back home. 25 minutes later I was back to put them in the dryer. Now the man was sitting outside on a bench talking to another guy. He looked at me again, as I went inside. Oh brother! I put my clothes in the dryer and then read my National Geographic while I waited. He came in as I was checking my clothes and saw the magazine. "National Geographic? Do you get that regularly?" I said yes and he asked me if I actually read it or just looked at the pictures. It took me a minute so he told me that he was making that old joke about the naked breasts on African women. Charming. I assured him that I did, in fact, read it and that I didn't think they showed tits anymore. They must be cracking down.

As I folded my clothes, he proceeded to ask me a hundred questions about where I live, what I do for work, etc, etc. I should have kept my mouth shut but he had a nice face and sounded like John Wayne. I told him about my plan to move back to L.A. and start my own business. Next thing you know, the guy is telling me that L.A. is awful and I don't want to live there, that San Francisco is the best place on earth, that before I go I should look for a job with the city. They, apparently, give lifetime health care after you work there five years, but they're changing it soon to twenty years. "You should be buying a house," he said, "with first time homeowners, you could buy a house with $10 grand." He added I should at least try that before I ran home to live with mommy. It's funny because in the moment, I was actually interested in what he had to say. We talked about how abysmal health care is in this country and I said that I thought the government was taking plenty of our money, they just weren't spending it on the things that are important to us. I also said that I think people rely too much on "health care" instead of just being healthy.

I told him my plan is to stay healthy and not get hit by a bus. It sounded ridiculous, but then again, so did his plan. Honestly, five years as a civil servant? Could you imagine? I felt like I was dying in a corporate environment for crying out loud. Buy a house, in the Bay Area? I've been laid off twice in a year, there's no security in a job and what happens when I have that huge mortgage payment and no job? It was in the hours later that I realized I am designing my own life, my own freedom, my own security. The encounter with this stranger, who iterated all of my own counter arguments to me, in person, made me defend my plan, face my doubts and realize that I'm doing exactly the right thing for me, right now.

Random interactions

Every now and then, I have a string of what seem to be odd or funny fleeting interactions with strangers. I always wonder if these people are a kind of messenger delivering something to me that I wouldn't hear coming from a friend. Then again, I try not to read too much into them.

I was taking a cab to the wedding in Georgia. It was only a dozen blocks or so but I had some slight heels on and I’m such a wimp, I’d probably have blisters if I walked it. Anyway, the cab driver was chatting at me the whole time but a lot of it was unintelligible for some reason. I think I told him I was going to a wedding, he asked where I was from, I said San Francisco and then he said he’d spent some time there in the sixties. Oh, I said, that was a good time to be there. He looked at me, really confused, huh? Never mind. He chatted at me some more. Then when I got out (and he dropped me off in the wrong place as it turns out) he said “And just remember, it’s never too late!”

I was introduced to someone at a party on Friday and he said as he was leaving, “Your name is an adjective!”

The other day I had to mail some bills. I had been sitting at the computer for far too long and finally launched myself out the door when I had only 20 minutes to get there. I could make it if I walked quickly but when I hit the hills, I suddenly got a burst of energy and decided to run. There was one big hill, a street, and then another. Halfway up the first one, a guy on a bike came by. He said something and I paused the iPod (which I never take walking but did because I knew I needed motivation to get there quickly). I said, very impressive! He rode his bike exactly alongside me to the next street. Let’s see how you do on this one, he said. Challenged, I of course had to keep running. My chest pounded a bit on the top but I made it up at the same pace as him. As he pedaled off he said, “You have my admiration!”

While I was England, I went into a shop to get some photos printed. The saleslady asked me if I was Canadian. When I said no, American, she said “Really? Because your accent is so soft.”

In Georgia, I was at the apartment of my friend getting married. All the bridesmaids were arriving for hair and makeup and to generally get ready together. There were a lot of people milling around as my friend got her hair put into giant curlers. I introduced myself to a woman I didn’t know. You have good eyebrows, she said. I realized she must have been the makeup gal and said that I wasn’t getting made up. Embarrassed, she said “Oh, well it’s good you have nice eyebrows then, imagine if you didn’t!”