Love, Mom

_{Jill Greenberg Revelations}

Every day I make a running list in my head of the difference between here and there. I will save most of that for some other post, but a couple things happened to me today and they were the kinda things that would have been nice to share with someone because they were funny yet entirely inconsequential. Because I haven't shared with them with anyone yet today, I offer them up to you here.

I went on a hike today, not a big deal hike, really something more of a walk to a park called Treepeople. It was a very nice park with lots of informational placards and kind reminders to pick up your dogshit and to not smoke. The funny thing was--and this brings me to the difference-between-here-and-there portion of this little post--is that everyone was dressed for major physical activity. I kid you not, I was the only person I saw in jeans and muddy sneakers and not carrying a water bottle. There were many wearing portable electronic devices that played music or allowed them to talk on the phone hands free. I saw some very well-coordinated track suits, and every one was dressed to the nines in their athletic wear.

But, as happens, when people are walking and passing nearby, I overheard some bits of conversations that made my day. I am not even sure if they will translate here, but I will try. One young couple--and when I mean young, I am guessing high-school--were on a sort of date, it seemed. The young girl was very, um, perky but in a tolerable and cute kinda way. She was talking about a bike ride she had gone on in a group and how flustrated she was that she could not keep up. She kept finding herself dead last, with no one else around. It brought her to tears, but she kept persevering. When she thought she could take it no longer, she looked up from the steep road in front of her and realized there were sunflowers six feet high on either side of her. I know what she means, sunflowers can have that effect on me, too. As if we are looking in a mirror and seeing, instead of our own dour reflection, something smiling back at us with unwavering determination. Sometimes it is just the thing we need. I used to plant sunflowers, for this very reason, every summer. It saddens me that I no longer have a plot of land in which I can plant, neither a vegetable garden nor these cheery flowers, for those long summer nights when it is just me, the yard, and the slugs.

The other funny--okay I think maybe it's not really funny, but actually sweet--thing that I noticed today happened when I was in line at the post office. Now, normally I can get away with not standing in this line and using the automated postage machine which I love. But I forgot to tape my box and I needed to buy insurance, so along with everybody else who arrived at ten of closing, I had to stand in line. But if I hadn't stood in line, I wouldn't have noticed the young guy in front of me, checking his email on his cell phone. There he was scrolling through, when I happened to catch the last, salutary line on his message. And it said love, Mom. It was a nice closing to what had been a rather brutish day and, once again, gave me faith in humanity, young boys and their mothers, and kids in high-school going on a hiking date and revealing the most important details of their lives. We are not so different, after all.