Friday, August 13, 2010

30 Day Letter Challenge--Day Twenty-Seven: To the friendliest person you knew for only a day

If you told me your name then, I've forgotten it, but this letter is to you anyway,

You took one look at me and knew I didn't belong anywhere near the 47th Street Green Line stop. You were nice enough to not come right out and say it, though. I think you asked what time it was. I was reading, the same book I just finished, I think, (confession: I believe that, subconsciously, I only read that book because the narrator sounded just like *******. I think it's the whole learned-English-in-Kenya thing; their sentence structure is almost identical in its roundabout elegance.) and I recall being slightly perturbed that you kept talking to me. (Sorry.) You asked if I was waiting for a train, and I told you I'd just gotten off one; I was waiting for a friend. You were waiting rather impatiently for another train; you'd been waiting for a long time already. You made me aware of how much time I spent in Chicago waiting; writing this now, I think about how much of our lives we spent waiting. (This is totally unrelated, by my new favorite random fact is that, according to a Dentyne Ice commercial, the average person will spend 20,000 minutes of their life kissing.) You laughed at how long I thought the trip would take, because the Green Line is 'real fast', but warned that it would take longer if my friend was coming from farther north than Roosevelt. You asked where we were going, and marveled at the nice area our barbeque was being held in. You let me know where the bus stop we'd need to get on was, and about how far we had to go. I wouldn't normally talk to someone sitting near me at a train station, but you were relentless in leading this conversation, and until your train finally came, you were really great company. It was also pretty reassuring knowing exactly where I was going once I left the station, and I think my friend was impressed. You even told me to be careful and to have fun when you were getting on your train, and it wasn't condescending at all because I'm pretty sure you were a few years younger than me...just a LOT more street smart. 


Anyway, I never said thanks. :)


Maya

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