this evening, last week's
barista-meets-delivery-girl greets me from the other side of the coffeeshop counter. it's quiet in here now. so, before serving me my hot tea, she enquires -- engaged and enthusiastic -- about "the event" she and i have yet to discuss. we proceed to back and forth about it, each of us sharing her own side of the experience. she tells me how some young woman had approached her near the drink bar and passed along the goods while on the phone getting confirmation that the timing of the delivery was in fact right. i tell her how i'd later learned that that young woman -- whom i'd never met, but who'd been commissioned to run the romantic errand on behalf of her metropolitan friend -- had been sitting right across from me as i received the gauzy blue gift...how she'd been on the phone with the Giver, covertly providing him with a play-by-play of my giddy reaction and then frantically hanging up when she saw me reach for my own phone in order to call him, in an it's-the-night-before-xmas kind of disbelief, to at least
attempt to express my gratitude.
after a pause, and amid the kind of smiles that seem to float overhead and softly settle around you like a pillow or a cloud, she says:
wow...it's kinda like in a movie!
yeah, he really is pretty great, i say. it's a response that spills out slowly and naturally from a very warm place deep inside my chest. nonetheless, when it's typed out, the statement is decidedly and regretfully inadequate.
upon sitting down with my tea, i flip open my laptop and, without feeling hurried, reread the last two blog entries. after all, one of the beauties of keeping a blog is that you can navel-gaze and otherwise indulge yourself as much as you want or need to. and, through this indulgence, i rediscover those moments: their surprise, my burning cheeks, the mystery man, his rare thoughtfulness, the fleeting and deluded and perfect feeling of believing i was the most special person in the world.
and it now occurs to me that another beautiful thing about blogging is time travel. today is a very sad day. but, thanks to this portal, i've momently resurfaced.
and now back to translating...
