On The Way Home...
On the way home today, three moments of significance:
An older gentleman held the door open for me at the Port Authority Bus station, and then rushed to open the next door for me. I thanked him each time. The second time, he looked me in the eye and said, “With that hat, you deserve a little extra special treatment.” I had my broad brimmed straw sunhat in hand (or as we Southern girls like to call it—the “big floppy” hat). Kindness from a stranger can make my evening.
On the train, a woman sat huddled on the corner bench next to the wall. Homeless, she was without shoes and improvised with multiple pairs of socks. Surrounded by her personal fort of trash-to-treasures, the woman fiddled with the hole in her sleeve and muttered. As I left, I gave her my bag of almonds. In reply, she said, “It least it’s something…”
On my stoop, one of my neighbors left some items in a cardboard box. This is how NYers purge their homes of clutter. When you see something left on the stoop, it means open to a good home. Unable to resist a valuable freebie, each passerby cranes his or her neck to see what potential treasures lie within…even if sometimes, that same item ends up on the stoop again next week.