Another New Face, Another New Chapter

    Life really isn't quite "complicated" conceptually. Millions and millions of things exist simultaneously (by chance or by design is up to you) and work together in a chain reaction of events that keep everything cyclical and continuous. One pedal lowers as the other rises around the same gear and chain for a bike to go forward. An organism dies as another is born. But it's in looking into what that means on a day to day basis that for some reason, to me, it becomes more complicated. Because at that point, it's much more than end results and follow-able patterns- from that vantage point, the patterns are far too long term or big in scale to recognize. In the day to day, it's more about all the individual, vast amounts of decisions that are made of freewill that tend to (despite our efforts to all be different and make a change, which we sometimes do) continue to feed the endless patterns and cycles.

    To be honest I don't know what significance any of that had, or how to make that paragraph above an acceptable segue to the intended subject matter of this entry, but here it is... So basically, the small, insignificant yet significant decision I made today that was noteworthy amongst the thousands, was in taking a second out of my day to say hi and invite a new name to share dinner with me. I don't hardly know more than her name, or at least I didn't before the brief chat, but she has since the moment I first saw her demanded my attention for some odd reason. I mean, I really and truly do not understand it. Again, I know nothing about her. And, this is not yet another example of my mind running off with my heart again and my imagination making her into this romanticized character like it has in the past. No, none of that. Rather, for lack of better words, she simply demanded my attention... And the thing is, it was just this past Friday that I ever truly saw her. It's weird. When she shook my hand, just another customer at the coffee house, I realized then all at once I'd seen her many times before, both in the early and late hours, but never quite held to her image until now... And now I can remember perfectly every odd run-in or time I've seen her- always on her bike wearing a yellow helmet, zooming by. And I remember every time thinking to myself something about her just refuses to go unnoticed though not once did she utter a word or act out. Like a ping on a radar I don't have the privilege of being able to turn off and now that she's on it to stay, the pinging won't stop.

    It's interesting to me how much I truly wish to learn of her intricacies. Pick her brain a little. Or maybe more interesting than that, is if there is truly any goal in mind- which I'm not sure there is. Maybe it is to date her? Maybe is to just have the experience of meeting someone new and the giddiness of it, or to gain another perspective from another young mind to further complicate my own thought processes as I attempt to pick what I do and don't like about it and absorb what I can, but in the very least, I aim to be her friend. I've decided that thus far... For the moment. Who knows what tomorrow morning will hold, or if I ever even run into her again for that matter.

    All I know is that this human intrigued me to the point that I paced about an empty balcony speaking to the cool breezes sweeping to the East, voicing my desires for a deeper connection, or at least a more established one somewhere out on the far-but-reachable horizon that is the future. Making stupid, never-going-to-be-heard speeches to an unknown audience. She intrigued me enough that I did all that stupid stuff. She intrigued me enough that I gave her yet another glance. And another, and another, formulating and questioning all the while. She intrigued me enough to call me to action for God's sake- enough to make me actually stop reading my book, walk over to her, and ask her to join me for dinner. And Lord knows that takes a lot. It's all like an old man who walks the beach everyday with nothing on his mind but the idea that he will take that walk because he always does, but along the way feels his silvery walking stick wriggle and beep only to realize that his walking stick was in fact a metal detector, and that more attention grabbing than that, was that he had indeed stumbled upon something- the value of the discovery yet to be seen. And even beyond all that, he sits there in a stupor, scratching his bucket-hat-covered scraggly scalp as his eyes pass over the piece of shiny new metal thoroughly and ponders the absence of such a ping for all those long sunny days prior.

    So kudos to you, stranger, for inspiring me to do yet another stupid thing- write like some overly-romantic oaf about it all. For managing to encapsulate my brain with all four letters of your name, a shake of your hand, and a soft smile over a spicy cup of coffee.

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