What does one do when the only day to take to a bench in Chicago turns out to be wet and ugly?
Sit in the rain, that’s what. How could I pass up a chance to take a seat along the shore of Lake Michigan? Weather schmeather.
On the upside, I had my choice of benches. There was not a soul in sight. I chose one on a concrete overhang. Of all my bench-sittings, this proved to be the loneliest. It could have been the dreary skies. Or the solitude at the edge of a major city. Then again, it could have been Tom.
Tom was a panhandler, singing and playing a harmonica in the tunnel walkway under Lake Shore Drive. I stopped, dropped money into his bucket and talked with him a bit. He was a cheerful guy with, what else: a sad story. I wasn’t sure if any of it could be believed. Maybe not the fact that he had been turned out of his nearby apartment just early today. Certainly not the tale that he had a fortune in jewels hidden in the place that had better (profanely prefaced) BE there when he got the apartment back. I shook his hand, we wished each other the best and I walked away, listening to the forlorn wailing of harmonica blues echo behind me in the tunnel.
The rain was a fine spray, kicked up by gusts of wind, blowing at my back, thankfully, as I sat on my stone octagon. Clouds descended on the skyline, shrouding the tallest of the buildings. It was a uniformly gray landscape. Depressingly gray.
Except for the one patch of blue – just an accent on an ornate tower. But it was a conspicuous blue. A serendipitous blue.
I know in these blogs I tend towards involved analogies. This time, I’ll try to keep things simple and just say that I want to be that patch of blue on a gray landscape. It’s not that life is the equivalent of a rainy day. Life is a gift – a wonderful, overflowing, astonishing gift. But it can become a bit, well, ordinary. Buried under the mundane.
A little color helps – something unexpected and pleasing. Like the little doodles I often leave for housekeeping with a tip in hotels. Or asking the taxi driver today what he missed from his native Bulgaria. Or, for that matter, stopping to talk with Tom.
This, I’m deciding, is getting close to the heart of what I’m to do with my margins of time. Each day, every day, look for a way to use those skills I’ve developed, those gifts I’ve been given, to bring a little color into someone’s day.
Just be livin’ the blues, man. I’ll just be livin’ the blues.
Sit in the rain, that’s what. How could I pass up a chance to take a seat along the shore of Lake Michigan? Weather schmeather.
On the upside, I had my choice of benches. There was not a soul in sight. I chose one on a concrete overhang. Of all my bench-sittings, this proved to be the loneliest. It could have been the dreary skies. Or the solitude at the edge of a major city. Then again, it could have been Tom.
Tom was a panhandler, singing and playing a harmonica in the tunnel walkway under Lake Shore Drive. I stopped, dropped money into his bucket and talked with him a bit. He was a cheerful guy with, what else: a sad story. I wasn’t sure if any of it could be believed. Maybe not the fact that he had been turned out of his nearby apartment just early today. Certainly not the tale that he had a fortune in jewels hidden in the place that had better (profanely prefaced) BE there when he got the apartment back. I shook his hand, we wished each other the best and I walked away, listening to the forlorn wailing of harmonica blues echo behind me in the tunnel.
The rain was a fine spray, kicked up by gusts of wind, blowing at my back, thankfully, as I sat on my stone octagon. Clouds descended on the skyline, shrouding the tallest of the buildings. It was a uniformly gray landscape. Depressingly gray.
Except for the one patch of blue – just an accent on an ornate tower. But it was a conspicuous blue. A serendipitous blue.
I know in these blogs I tend towards involved analogies. This time, I’ll try to keep things simple and just say that I want to be that patch of blue on a gray landscape. It’s not that life is the equivalent of a rainy day. Life is a gift – a wonderful, overflowing, astonishing gift. But it can become a bit, well, ordinary. Buried under the mundane.
A little color helps – something unexpected and pleasing. Like the little doodles I often leave for housekeeping with a tip in hotels. Or asking the taxi driver today what he missed from his native Bulgaria. Or, for that matter, stopping to talk with Tom.
This, I’m deciding, is getting close to the heart of what I’m to do with my margins of time. Each day, every day, look for a way to use those skills I’ve developed, those gifts I’ve been given, to bring a little color into someone’s day.
Just be livin’ the blues, man. I’ll just be livin’ the blues.
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