Brief encounters

 Once a while ago, I was feeling unhinged about having to explain myself and my preoccupation with strangers from time to time. Where as some people I know consider it strange to remember things and people who they don't know very well, I am quite the opposite. I enjoy the past and those present there immensely,  they keep me company on my off days. ("Old King Cole was a merry old soul" says my inner mocker)

I spent a good deal of time remembering on that day, and also analysed why one might be the kind of person who likes to remember people. For instance, if you meet someone briefly,  you might feel it strange to remember them except for something extraordinary,  and so I made a list of the brief encounters that made a large impact. 

Time being an issue, I listed the very briefest encounters that had the greatest impact. The character of someone can be greatest seen in those small acts of kindness. 

For instance, once when I had traveled to Los Angeles to visit my father and brother, my brother and his friends wanted to take me to see Capital Records.  As soon as we got there and exited the car, we realized that the keys got locked in the car. I was a rebellious, smoking teenager and we had no cigarettes. We were penniless, our butts glued to the sidewalk on the corner of a major intersection in downtown L.A., when a woman in a baggy white jumpsuit passes by. The guys make quiet remarks to me about her being a prostitute, and I am surprised by her outfit, having seen Pretty Woman. She looked about 23, brown short hair pulled into a low messy ponytail, and white loose fitting joggers and open matching jacket. I ask her for a cigarette while she is striding by, and she brushes me off, kind of rudely. I am astonished an hour later when she passes back by and has a cigarette for me now.

Around the same time, I must have been about 15, I was skipping school one day and I went to the Waffle House at lunchtime. I live nearby this same restaurant and the difference in the size of the afternoon crowd is a little sad, as if a herd of buffaloes or antelope has moved on. On this day, I can still see, it is very busy and there is a crowd waiting at the door, but I am alone and have taken a seat at the bar. Next to me, at some point, a woman has seated herself and she's striked up a conversation with me about painting. It seems odd to me, because I feel like I have been painting for so long now. This woman is giving me advice about how to paint, maybe I was doodling there at the counter. Anyway, she tells me that the color of skin on a canvas is not always cream or brown but yellow and purple and pink and blue, and although I understood perfectly what she meant, I had no reference to learn from it. This was before the internet, and so my paintings became these colorful messes, because I loved the idea of all these colors. 

After becoming an artist, there was a man who became important to me. You know, because one puts hope where hope goes. The man may or may not have been homeless. But he spent a great deal of time on the Marta train system, because even in the 90s you never ran into anyone you know in Atlanta, and I met him twice, maybe more. He sold me first a crayon drawing on lined loose leaf paper, and then a painting on a canvas board that my first husband framed for me as a gift, not knowing it wasnt me who painted it. The man was an older black man, and his painting is still in a frame in my living room. I hope there are folks displaying the art they got from me.

When we were teenagers we used to visit Midtown Atlanta on the train, and this is because we liked to see the sort of counterculture that was once way less seen and mainstream, the suburbs were much more clean and Sunday school then, even little neighborhoods of lower classes. There was a guy I saw once visiting the gay strip mall. I walked into a store and saw him, it was the wrong store. This interaction may have taken less than a minute. But we exchanged glances and he left me with a feeling I will never forget. Like a love at first sight kind of thing. He had long black hair and dark brown eyes. He was wearing an apron. It may have been a Schlotsky's.

I met a girl in highschool who I knew maybe one day, we snuck out back for a cigarette. I dropped out of highschool when I was 15, (other great geniuses who left school at 15 were Einstein, Ray Kroc, Walt Disney...) and wondered the other day if I hadn't done it because we got caught and suspended. Anyway, I digress, she was a new student, she had orangey, frizzy curled hair and nondescript clothes, she had transferred from California. She was as white as any little anglo girl could be. She told me she spoke fluent Spanish so I asked her to speak it to me.  And out of her came the most beautiful sounding language, with a delicate authentic accent. Then we got caught, in the middle of this magical moment. And got suspended, and they even called my mother.

When I was 15, again, I had this black bobbed hairdo, and everyone said I looked like this chick Uma Thurman from Pulp Fiction. When my mother and I finally went to see the film, this strange guy came up and sat down next to me, made brief conversation, enough that we knew he attended my friends private school and that he was a huge fan of the film. He then kissed me, heavily, right next to my mom! And when I gave him the wrong number after the show, he had the nerve to ask my friend for my number!

When I was a bit older one of my friends and my brother and I went downtown on the train and I got pulled into an alleyway while they weren't watching by a young man and his blind mother. Her eyes were crusted shut and I gave them all of my money, including everyone's bus fare home. They were so mad at me! Right before the last train ride home as we were hanging around pretending we were helpless, (did we have no parents?) a Marta worker let us onto the train and we rolled in after midnight that night. 

When I was pregnant with my son, I was alone. My husband had left me before I even found out I was pregnant. After my last doctors visit I was sitting on a bench outside the office building, waiting for a ride home. I was probably feeling sorry for myself or I wouldn't have taken the whole incident to heart. A old woman came and sat down next to me, she told me how blessed I was, that she was never able to have children.

Not that it means that much to me but my wild side kicked in at Music Midtown once and I walked right up to a cute stranger after the concert, as the flow of "traffic" afterward was pretty heavy, he was walking toward me and I was walking toward him and as we were face to face in the crowd, I kissed him. Total stranger, left him there 2 seconds later.

A couple of times a smile has meant a huge deal to me. Remember to smile at folks. Lately, small exchanges make for so much inspiration. I work with the public, and from the look in someone's eyes when they are adoring their partner, or a simple authentic gesture without any intention is so beautiful to me. Just moments? How can we forget them?