Lately the going has been quite rough for everyone, but I happened upon something the other day on my walk that made the world still look pretty delightful. At 6 in the morning In downtown Bangor I found a friendly-looking, middle-aged fellow wrestling a stuffed animal the size of a small pony out of the back of his bright yellow Honda Fit.
This was just too curious. “Wow, where you going with that?” I called out before I could stop myself.
He turned around, surprised by this voice coming at him in the stillness of the morning when he thought he was by himself.
“Oh, to the office,” he said sheepishly, sounding like he wished he hadn’t been caught.
So that was why he was here at 6 in the morning! He was avoiding walking into work carrying his enormous stuffed animal while everyone else was carrying their briefcases and totes. I can see how that would be hard to pull off with dignity and might be worth a special, early morning mission downtown.
“The office. Of course!” I called back over my shoulder, like this is a perfectly usual thing to do. The silliness just begged to be heightened.
A few beats later he shouted back in explanation and defense, “It’s for the health of the children!”
“Oh” I shouted back to him, no longer quick enough to come up with anything at all to say, which was very disappointing. I regretted my slowness even more a few steps further down the road when I figured out he was probably some kind of child therapist, just the kind of thing I like to know for sure. In hopes of confirming my guess, I turned back around but by then he was unlocking the office building door and I was a half a block down the road. Even I had to concede it would be kind of weird to take this discussion further at that point.
Still, the sight of a guy sneaking an enormous stuffed animal out of the back of his cheerful yellow Honda Fit in the still of the morning for the health of the kids was already a big unexpected bonus for the day and made me really happy. And made me realize life is still very, very good.
To celebrate all that we still have and all the good stuff still out there waiting to be discovered, join the Total Health summer Life is Still Good Photo Challenge! See the attached flyer for details.
Here’s to the good stuff! |