Common Thread

My most recent bed stand occupant is a book.  

The book is a wonderfully enjoyable read, and I have found myself with the stirring of thoughts of the contents while waiting at red lights, while washing dishes, etc. That’s how you know it’s a good book! When the book occupies your thoughts even when you’re away. You know the feeling: It’s like when a lover, especially a new lover, leaves their words to swirl in your head…and you can hear them, taste them, miss them…. That’s how it is with this book. I cannot wait until bedtime…to curl up beneath the piled quilts and flannels, to settle in and find the marker, to open the waiting pages, crisp, fresh, with my hungry eyes.

Okay, so that’s a little much! But honestly, I do LOVE this book. It feeds me when I am hungry, as does a caring mate. Here I go again….

To the point, writer, to the point….

I see the world with new eyes, thanks to this book. I see the young woman on her unpretentious bike, gliding in and out of traffic and pedestrians. She is so unassuming that I cannot even tell you what color her hair is. She just is. She’s neither fat nor thin; she’s neither bland nor bling. She is centered with gravity and is as one with her bike. She has nothing to prove. She is content to simply ride. And I contemplate her.

And then I am stopped at the next semi four as a man, dare I say it, “a Vet” on his bike, waving to each and every car as it creeps past in midnoon city traffic. He is the polar opposite of the young woman just a block back, but still, the same. He probably misfires neurotransmitters and confuses honks as waves. He is at the center of his own gravity, of his own universe too. He is someone many will shy from, walk the other way, and not acknowledge his waving and his toothless smile. They see, perhaps, just grime. Maybe they see his erratic spinning, his head-on potential as he plows through sidewalk foot traffic. 

I see his potential too. I see he was likely a nice guy prior to Viet Nam, or to one-too-many hits of some hallucinogenic, or perhaps he simply chose to not participate. And he reminded me of the current economy and of the story I say I am writing, a story of a woman who teeters….

And I go back to work. I write, and I describe, and I force myself, willingly, to be the man on the bike, waving, smiling, weaving…. And I am at once the young girl, centered in her self, content, and seemingly balanced and happy to just be.

And I see the common threads.