Pleasantly Demented

May 15, 2011

Every morning, I go out.  Sometimes for a long time.  Sometimes more than 2 hours.  Sometimes I walk.  Sometimes I run.  All the time, I'm listening to music and just being.  I go different places, different directions.  But all the time, I see a man.  He looks Spanish of some sort.  An older guy.  Maybe late 60s?  And he always wears a wide-brimmed hat.  Every day.  For a long while, several months, I avoided eye contact with him.  The same way I do anyone else.  I pretend to be so lost in my Ipod that I don't notice them.  Many times, people will even throw a cursory hand up, perhaps a sad effort at a wave, which I don't even acknowledge.  But Mexican-or-maybe-Puerto-Rican man never did.  What he did do was look at me.  I know this because I could see him out of the corner of my eye.  He'd stare, fix his eyes on me until he had walked all the way past me.  I know he was waiting on me to acknowledge him.  But I didn't.  For months, we continued in this way.  I walked with my head down, or up but looking past everything in my field of vision, and he watched.  Things would get particularly awkward if I ever had to pass him.  Usually, if that happened, I'd start running if I wasn't, or just speed up if I was, and cut a wide path around him.  Easy enough.

But then, one day, I didn't see him.  I walked and ran and searched but there was no man.  I wondered if maybe we just missed each other that day.  Maybe he had something to do.  Maybe.  But I was concerned.  It just wasn't like him to miss a day.

You can imagine my relief the next day when I caught a glimpse of the top of his hat just over the next hill, going up and down with his wobbly, old-man steps, as he walked in my direction.  I was very glad to see him.  So glad, in fact, that as I walked past him that day, I waved.  And smiled.  It wasn't planned.  I didn't even realize I'd done it until he waved back.  And smiled at me, too.  Such a silly thing.  We wave every day now.  And smile.  I'm pretty sure I like him.