a moment

To the moment created in a time set apart, I give my humble reflections:

Perhaps you didn’t take too much notice of me, perhaps our shared glance was one of many you received that evening. But I could not keep my eyes off you. A simple exchange was offered – I gave you our reservation name; you led us to the table. Once we arrived, I once again thanked you, thankful for the last look you permitted me. It was true gratitude, knowing that I could share in the memory of your evening. I just had to let you know of your beauty, because for you to go through that day without hearing it would truly have been a tragedy.

I couldn’t help but let my mind wander through the magical hypotheticals that always seem to accompany those small moments experienced throughout my life. My life intersected with yours in a way both phenomenal and all too ordinary. In all likelihood, we will never see each other again. You’ll keep working at the restaurant, I’ll leave the country in a few days. You’ll keep seeing your current significant other, and I’ll stay being single. Yet for a brief and spiritual moment, I saw all that could have been.

Your hair was in a light and relaxed ponytail that betrayed some of your calmness and your ability to put people at ease. You struck me as a complete charmer, someone whose smile takes the edge off a customer’s day, a smile that softens the bitter cold of winter. I’ll bet you like to drink black tea with a hint of sugar, and you enjoy dates that take you only mildly by surprise, perhaps including a subtle addition – going for a walk on the lake after dinner, or being cooked food instead of going out. You tend to smile when you’re nervous, which has the opposite effect, even on you. Your eyes are a deep well of emotion, and you offer to share that with whoever is lucky enough to catch them in a glance. You are a sucker for moods, and you spend days listening to CDs that your beloved made for you. After 30 years of being together, you continue to love your partner with a fierceness that is matched by few. You both spend holidays in a simple cabin in the woods, reading each other’s poetry. You share in all of life, the wretched and the rejoicing.

And then I open my eyes. You were there with me, as a barrage of life’s snapshots zoomed past, leaving me breathless. You were my sanctuary. I remembered an event never to happen, as we walked along a snowy path with the chilly air enclosing around our bodies, meshed together. You kissed me on the ear, reminding me of the day we met, in that restaurant, so many years ago. What a crazy, random way to meet, you said. I agreed. How crazy life is. You turned away with that half-smile and pulled me closer.

All I wanted to do was thank you, thank you for being you in this world, for sharing your beauty with me. Our paths crossed for an extraordinarily short breath of time, a mere blink on the radar of our lives.

I look back, catching one more quasi-glimpse of your figure through the revolving doors.

What was I doing? Do all people spend this much time thinking about encounters that lasted no more than a few minutes, seconds? Are we so starved for connection that we look at this world in amazement, thankful for every person that enters our life, either for two minutes or two decades? I think so. We are so tied to others that we have to remind ourselves of the beauty that surrounds us.

We long for a sanctuary, no matter how cynical the world becomes. We pray for wholeness, for extravagant ways to be authentic.

I’ll remember your eyes, I thought to myself. No words describe the encounter, except maybe two: Thank you.