When Walking In San Francisco…
July 2, 2013
I was having a shitty day. Negative, slow and just hopeless. I was in The Marina district and decided to walk back to Noe Valley (around 3.5 miles). I had just conquered a huge hill when Hayley called me. “What are you doing?” she said. “I’m walking home.” “That’s really far!” she said. I didn’t care. Hayley said she was on a bus heading to an interview, “where are you?” she said. I told her I was on Folsom about to get to the corner of Jackson. She paused and said, “that’s where I am.” I looked up at the bus that had just stopped at the corner and there she was. We were literally right next to each other- separated only by a few feet and a few inches of metal and glass. We both stared at each other- AMAZED- and just began laughing. Then, I noticed an old woman, with a cane and a hunched back standing very close to me. “That’s a beeeeautiful girl!” she said. “I know, that’s my girlfriend, we’ve been dating for 8 years!” She said, “OOoohhh, you should marry her before someone else SNATCHES her up!” The bus pulled away and Hayley and I, still on the phone, hung up. I asked the old woman if I could help her cross the street. We linked arms and made our way, slowly, accross Folsom. “You’re a very nice looking boy,” she said, “if you two got married, you’d have half a dozen nice looking kids”. I smiled and said thank you. When we had crossed the street she looked at me and said I had “very very nice teeth”. I smiled again and thanked her.
Incredible.
In a minute and a half, a coincidental bus encounter and helping a stranger cross the street cleared the fog, made the sun come out and made my 3.5 mile journey ahead completely worth it.
