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All My Children Discussion Group
So.
I have this little convienient store on the corner entrance into my neighborhood. Its about 7/10 of a mile from my house. I walk to and from it every morning to pick up a paper and a coffee. Even when I have coffee made at home or even back when I had a delivery subscription to the paper. I like the walk in the mornings, the excercise and the fresh air. I was in a bad accident last year and this was the first walk I took when I was physically mended enough to walk long distances. I got to like it, and the air. Its kinda a dangerous walk (I have to cross a daitch, a narrow lil landbridge and a corner of a lil highway road - but its worth it. Especially since I am not driving fulltime yet again. I enjoy the serenity of he walk in the mornings.
Well, for the last year the same guy has been the Morning Guy that works there every morning. Hes not really very polite. And he doesn't really keep the store even remotely clean. I think he cheats me sometimes and he always lies to me about when he made the coffee. I don't think I ever even knew his name.
So, I go in the other day and some dumb young kid is working there that morning and I'm all like ''Hey! Wheres the other guy?!'' and this young scamp proceeds to tell me that the other guy is gone and that he will be working there in the mornnings now.
So, I grew concerned and asked if the other guy was ok or sick and the kid tells me that the other guy just wasn't working there anymore. He was asking me if I actually liked the other guy and said nobody liked the other guy. Well, I grew defensive and took up for my guy.
I guess I'll have to give this young scamp a chance. He hasn't shown me much so far. And he doesn't make the coffee near as good (even though it was still pretty bad before). But, sometimes Life ties our hands, doesn't it?
Ok, one other thing. Recently, a friend was talking about this spider and her web that was always in the corner on the porch. (I don't know if it sat down beside her.) Well, from what I gather, unfortunately, it seems that the spider passed on and the web dissolved. She misses seeing the web and the spider in that spot on the porch.
I don't think that silly. I totally get that.
We get used to - maybe comforted - by the sameness of the littlest things in life, don't we?
Change can come in varying degrees. Sometimes it hits us like a volcanic eruption at midnight, and sometimes it comes gradually in our direction...but it is always there, looking us in the face, staring us right in the eye, waiting for our best shot in life, isn't it?
I hope I'm up for it. I'm young. I'm not as young as I used to be.
I guess the coffee wasn't really all that bad.
Chris/PT
I have a sort of similar story but I think your cranky old guy had so much meaning for you because he is associated with your reacquired independence and knowledge of your own strength and power. Do you think?
I used to work at a department store in a mall and had to be there by 6:00 Am. I had a really hard time sleeping back then and I was lucky to get four hours a night. Unlike you, I did not wear it well. (My very dear friend who I met at that job likes to tell me I was a bitch in the morning--(he, on the other hand, always had seven cups of coffee before he even got to work!) Anyway, my break was at 9:45 and I would always go out into the mall area to get a Pepsi (and sometimes a steak, egg and cheese bagel----droooooooooool!). I would almost always run into (not literally) this old gentleman mallwalker who dragged an oxygen tank around with him. He was pretty darned old and he moved very slowly, but he was always there, and he always had to talk to my very grumpy self. He would always say good morning and ask me how I was. I just wanted to be left alone to wallow in my tiredness, but I was always polite and did the chitchat thing, saying good morning bacck and asking how he was. He always had the same reply-"I'm here, and that makes it a good morning."
I haven't worked at that job for over eight years now, but I think about that old guy (who is likely no longer with us) and I wish I could give him a hug and explain that I was always so tired back then, that I wasn't a grump and that he was a wise man, choosing to keep plugging on and to have a positive attitude.
And you know what? What a great thing for your cranky old guy--we all need someone to notice us and miss us when we are gone and it sounds like he wasn't too popular all around.I'm glad he has someone to notice his absence.
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We have a little lizard in our courtyard (which we can see from our dining room window) that I've named 'Weirdo' because he went through a whole period of time where he would just sit on the windowsill and look like he was peering in and watching us eat. I'm sure he was staring at his own reflection, but it struck me funny. We love to look for him while we're eating. He is the King of the Courtyard, complete with a wife (wives?) and children. He's really entertaining.
David Sedaris has a story called "April in Paris" about his fascination with the spiders (one he named April in particular) at his home in France.
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