thanks for all your responses via email (and ms. pea and jen who left comments here) to my last post. not surprisingly, many of you had strong feelings and smart ideas on the topic and i really appreciate you sharing them with me!
it's 9pm and 88 degrees out.
this morning i had to do a workshop for a group of youth. it turns out that they were much younger than my usual crowd - i found myself in a very comfy, broken arm chair with a circle of 12 nine-year-olds sitting in a circle on a rug around me. they were supposed to go on a really cool field trip, but because the program had forgotten and then remembered that i was coming, the youth ended up not going on the trip and instead had to listen to ... me. talk about ... domestic violence. yeah. sounds rough right? well, these kids were so incredibly thoughtful and polite and smart that when, after a really great 25 minute conversation, they started rolling around on the rug and giggling, i figured i was in the clear to cut my hour presentation to 25 minutes.
i escaped unscathed out into the blazing sun to wait for a bus. miraculously (if you've never experienced SEPTA just take my word for it that it was a miracle), the bus arrived within 2 minutes. i got on the bus for a short trip to the train station. i descended into the urine-smelling, muggy station and found a seat. another miracle. the train pulled into the station no longer than 5 minutes later. at my station, i slowly moved up the stairs back into the blazing sun only to see - my bus! waiting at the corner for me! what could have been a slow, hot hour long trip took 20 blessedly air conditioned minutes.
there is clearly a god.
and then, at work, after eating a deliciously bad lunch (we're talking milkshake and mozzerrella sticks here) i was suffering from a pretty serious food coma. and then my friend and co-worker who works at a different site and who i never see and miss, stopped by. she was in the building for a meeting and immediately offered me some of her coffee. manna from heaven.
isn't it amazing how small surprises/coincidence/blessings (call them what you will) can make you feel on top of the world?
