The stoplight is long. I sit on a
one lane busy street waiting for the crossing guard. Traffic is backed up for two blocks, like it always is this time of day. Waiting for the light.
Waiting for all the other mothers and dads and daycare providers to cluster and
disperse. They pick up their precious
ones, and I pick up mine. Another waiter stands on the corner. Her charcoal parka hood pulled up around her
face, obscuring her demographics. Slight
build, somewhere between a woman and a child, long slender legs clad in dark gray leggings and black suede boots halfway to her knee. Her boots are coated in the powder snow that
fell down all day, light and dry. Her coat
covers her figure, everything about her sleek and dark. Her trendy, colorful
backpack is solid and full on her back. She absent-mindedly traces circles with
her toe the snow, her phone in hand, her head down, checking and rechecking
some communication. She checks the
street, checks the traffic, types on the touch screen.
An unkempt
little person unhurriedly approaches. He
is clad in layers of orange coat and long sleeved t-shirt, his jeans are untidily
sticking out of black rubber-soled snow boots. His coat is unzipped, his gloves
stick out of the coat pockets. His blonde hair is stuck here and there on his
forehead, his cheeks are pink with the cold. He licks his fingers, eating snow out of the schoolyard. He smiles at the girl and approaches her,
adoring eyes up, hands up, fingers splayed out displaying his frozen prize. He
comes up to her waist.
I expect
her to ignore him. I expect her to brush him off. Push him away. Adolescent
nonchalance. Scold him for his gloves off.
Instead, he sticks his hands in the pockets of her coat. She pulls him in close. He tilts his head way back and grins up at
her. She brushes snow off his cheeks and
pulls him in close for a hug. She leans
down; gentle and kind sister reaching down to a wild and rumpled little
brother. She puts her face right next to his and says something to him I cannot
hear through the car window. He beams and giggles, pulls away and goes back for
more snow. Every thing in her body language tells me he is precious. Every
thing in her posture tells me she would protect him to the ends of the earth. Legs
splayed, he leans down and grabs two more handfuls of snow. She gets what she needs from
her phone. She calls to him, he takes her hand. They walk across the street.
I have been contemplating this little scene of waiting all afternoon. Two things I'm thinking:
1 -there is love in that home. 2- Do my actions and reactions in the absent-minded moments of my day show the love I have for my people? I'll never forget this little scene as long as I live. How lovely is love when it crops up in unexpected places. What a glowing neon sign for the world it can be when we practice it well.
