Sunday, April 17, 2016

Take what you have gathered from










I don't mind bandying about with the gods and making easy use of them. But I am cautious in what I call magic, and am slow to use it, for of all things in this world magic is both the most skittish and the most friendly. 


So let's just prudently call this one an act of coincidence, even if I did find it charming.

In the morning, over a brunch of avocados and cold press, I was talking with my wife about a post I had written a day or two previously concerning new people, and about all the thousands of people I have known at the library, and about how much slower I am to now make full acquaintance with people who are around me regularly at the library. I used as an example one person that has both stood out to me as I wrote the piece (which you can surely find just a couple of days back here on the blog) and stood out as I was telling her about this. I told her about a man who we will call Steve, because that may or may not be his name, and who is somewhere within ten years of 67 years old, has been volunteering at my library for several years. For a year or two I did not exchange a word with him. Then, with a slow incremental increase we began greetings, until now we never fail to greet each other with great warmth. Our conversation remains slight, but our greetings are thorough and full of cordiality.

Two hours later my wife and I are in the area of Grand and Victoria. For those of you not from my cities this refers to the intersection of two streets, Grand, and Victoria. More? That's not enough? Okay, it's an area in the city of St. Paul with a fairly dense variety of shops and restaurants, about half chains, half originals. This is all many miles from my library, and even with the thousands of library patrons and staff I know by sight, it would be rare indeed to see any one of them in these cities of three million people, there or almost anywhere not in or quite close to the library

My wife and I are walking along when I hear my name called out in a kindly fashion from a car at an intersection.

It's Steve!

At least, I think that's his name. 




 

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