Simply Because I Care

The now ubiquitous Sunday morning yoga class jolted me into a day that progressively kept getting better: following a quick, spur-a-the-moment, yoga studio shower, we headed out for a quick bite with a friend-in-the-making.  A quiet, unassuming, handsome black man in his thirties, who took my “you are patient enough to be followed when driving, don’t you?” remark as a signal to treat us as aliens from another planet, who my be hopelessly lost should we loose sight of his car on the way there; instead of taking his normal rout on the highway, he took the back roads, extending a potentially ten minutes drive into an almost thirty minutes crawl. Finally there, when I asked him why? He sheepishly replied, “I was afraid you might get lost”.

Brunch was a breeze, as often is the case in those good-time moments in life, they go by quickly, almost imperceptibly.

We hurried on back home to meet this couple, friends of ours, who are moving into a new apartment.  He is a taller than average, handsome, green eyed, geeky looking, Jewish guy, of quiet and openly welcoming disposition, with a passion for his wife.  She, a life force, dark eyed, pretty brunet, exuding passionate restlessness for life; they arrived with news that he had suffered a deep cut on one of his hands, right at the base between two of his fingers. Befitting of his disposition, he didn’t seem to think much of it, as antibiotic ointment and band-aids should suffice to heal the wound in his mind. His wife, on the other hand, well, she was worried about going to the hospital and the implications that may come of that. At any rate, they settled on doing it his way.

Her soon-to-be former roommate completed the moving squad. A young guy of a average height, slightly built, possessing of paralyzing nervousness, apparently triggered by the unfamiliarity of newness; his quivering lips as he spoke betrayed his efforts to keep his energy dam from breaking.

Our task: to move an awkwardly shaped, mammoth relic of a color TV, heavy-as-sin to believers, into their new place. Somehow we got the job done without any major incident.

The couple then invited us to brunch, yes, our second brunch of the day: we spent the afternoon at a popular gay joint in town –a first for the soon-to-be former roommate-, which seemed only to increased his anxieties. Sharing beer and artery clogging, cheese food, we witness time fly by almost unnoticeably, as we chatted away about the beautifully mundane things that give meaning to our lives, engrossed in the pleasure of our willing companies.

Yes, engrossed in the pleasure of our willing companies.

We departed, each to continue on with our own separate lives; the couple, back to their on going moving chores, us, back to our quest to catch up on Oscar nominated movies, and the soon-to-be former roommate, back to his bachelorhood.

As the day came to a close I took stock of the day’s events, and I rejoiced in my good fortunes. I’m thankful for the moments I shared in the pleasure of their willing companies and the spiritual lubricant they brought. I realized how we all departed assuming we were the same people who greeted the morning’s sun as it rose welcoming a new day, almost unaware of the impact and the changes we brought to one another, and that’s OK.  Enough about me, now, let’s talk about you.