Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Wednesday Drivin'Bloggin' - nice people

The woman was clearly having a challenging life.
It was 4 degrees outside, as I stopped my car on the way to work. The line was formed at the new light in town that everyone hates, (you know, every town has a location where you used to just yield, er, slow and go, and now you have to stop and not turn right on red). This is the light that people are pushy and honky about.

Anyway, there was this woman who was clearly having a challenging life. She wore a pink puffy coat that was open, and under it hung an old paisley button down shirt which was only buttoned at the top four buttons or so. Her belly hung out from under it. She was carrying a plastic bag of stuff in one hand, and the other was balled up in a fist against the cold. I watched as she walked on the sidewalk with her eyes firmly fixed on the other side of the street.

As I sat at that red light, third in line, she approached the intersection and crosswalk. It didn't look like she was going to make it before the light changed. She didn't look as if she were going to wait for cars before entering the crosswalk.

The light turned green. The red Ford pickup in the front of the line didn't move.
The Gremlinish car in front of me sat patiently.
No one honked in front of or behind me.
She crossed the street safely, if slowly.
The light turned red again.

We all waited, knowing that no one ever died from having to wait a minute at a light.
Except maybe poorly dressed people in freezing weather.

It felt good, and I was both grateful to not be having that hard of a life, and grateful that at that moment nothing mattered more to any of us than to see that she crossed the street and got herself indoors.

So although I've not had time to post anything in weeks (except these Norwegian drivin'bloggin' posts) because of my crazy busy work and home life, I'm so grateful for that life I'm posting this at Cranky Cindy.

So there.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's nice to get the reminder that often people are nice, especially faced with others that are having a hard time. Thanks for the drivin' blogging!