verbalobe (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} pilgrim_eye) wrote,@ 2008-04-26 14:17:00 |
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Synchronicity
We strike out on the first of what we hope will be two or three walks today -- it's 11:30 and still just early enough and cool enough to qualify as "beating the heat." The birds and the bees are out, kids on trikes, puppies on leashes, it's a gorgeous Saturday morning in spring.
We've gone several hundred yards -- barely a sixth of the route -- and the conversation has already veered and branched several times, from our gardening plans, to the weather forecast, toScrabblesomething about Living with Purpose, when Marsh pulls me back a couple of paces to observe a flying insect on a railing.
"This one's blue," she says, and as I watch, the plain black thing takes flight revealing a shimmering teal body, and is gone.
"Cool!" I say.
"We didn't bring a jar," she says. We've been trying to collect bugs to add variety to Bambi the chameleon's diet, and save on trips to PetCo for crickets. Crickets bore Bambi. I'd even ordered a butterfly net earlier in the week, knowing that we could harvest many, many grasshoppers in the wild later in the season. We don't know if Bambi will like grasshoppers, but we're always thinking.
"I know," I say, "and the butterfly net didn't come yet. When it does, I'll look like a supreme dork." I pantomime an Edwardian gentleman, pirouetting as I swoop an imaginary butterfly net. Marsh laughs, charitably. (I'm actually an old and rusty pro with an insect net, but that's another story.)
As we're laughing dorkily, I spy the mail truck careening into the neighborhood. In the time it takes me to register its arrival, in the time it takes me to start to feel embarrassed that our mailman has seen me dancing like a loon, the little white van has swerved over to the curb and stopped opposite us. The lovely mailman -- is he Pakistani? Yemeni? Algerian? I cannot tell -- says to us, to me, "Mr. Van Pelt?"
"Yes?"
He's smiling, he enjoys his work, he enjoys knowing the real people behind the thousands of numbered slots and lockboxes. "I have a package for you today, I can give it now." He reaches beside his seat, next to heaps, mounds of trays and bundles of sorted mail, and pulls out a shipping box, bigger than a book but smaller than a breadbox, not heavy.
I'm thinking, as I'm sure Marsh is, do we want to carry a box all the way around with us, on our walk? He has handed it to me, he senses our hesitation. "It's okay -- I can leave it down there," he offers, nodding toward the mailboxes.
"No, no," I say. "It's fine, it's great, we'll take it. Thank you!" I turn to Marsh. "It's the butterfly net."
"You had ordered the net," you may say. "Its arrival was imminent. This was no coincidence." Even so, it's impossible to convey the feeling of unlikelihood in that moment. We unpacked and assembled the net as we continued our walk, and marveled at the universe.
We strike out on the first of what we hope will be two or three walks today -- it's 11:30 and still just early enough and cool enough to qualify as "beating the heat." The birds and the bees are out, kids on trikes, puppies on leashes, it's a gorgeous Saturday morning in spring.
We've gone several hundred yards -- barely a sixth of the route -- and the conversation has already veered and branched several times, from our gardening plans, to the weather forecast, to
"This one's blue," she says, and as I watch, the plain black thing takes flight revealing a shimmering teal body, and is gone.
"Cool!" I say.
"We didn't bring a jar," she says. We've been trying to collect bugs to add variety to Bambi the chameleon's diet, and save on trips to PetCo for crickets. Crickets bore Bambi. I'd even ordered a butterfly net earlier in the week, knowing that we could harvest many, many grasshoppers in the wild later in the season. We don't know if Bambi will like grasshoppers, but we're always thinking.
"I know," I say, "and the butterfly net didn't come yet. When it does, I'll look like a supreme dork." I pantomime an Edwardian gentleman, pirouetting as I swoop an imaginary butterfly net. Marsh laughs, charitably. (I'm actually an old and rusty pro with an insect net, but that's another story.)
As we're laughing dorkily, I spy the mail truck careening into the neighborhood. In the time it takes me to register its arrival, in the time it takes me to start to feel embarrassed that our mailman has seen me dancing like a loon, the little white van has swerved over to the curb and stopped opposite us. The lovely mailman -- is he Pakistani? Yemeni? Algerian? I cannot tell -- says to us, to me, "Mr. Van Pelt?"
"Yes?"
He's smiling, he enjoys his work, he enjoys knowing the real people behind the thousands of numbered slots and lockboxes. "I have a package for you today, I can give it now." He reaches beside his seat, next to heaps, mounds of trays and bundles of sorted mail, and pulls out a shipping box, bigger than a book but smaller than a breadbox, not heavy.
I'm thinking, as I'm sure Marsh is, do we want to carry a box all the way around with us, on our walk? He has handed it to me, he senses our hesitation. "It's okay -- I can leave it down there," he offers, nodding toward the mailboxes.
"No, no," I say. "It's fine, it's great, we'll take it. Thank you!" I turn to Marsh. "It's the butterfly net."
"You had ordered the net," you may say. "Its arrival was imminent. This was no coincidence." Even so, it's impossible to convey the feeling of unlikelihood in that moment. We unpacked and assembled the net as we continued our walk, and marveled at the universe.
