scribblechic

The afternoon of my husband’s birthday we met for a late lunch, borrowing a moment from our day for ourselves. The restaurant was quiet and we relaxed into an easy conversation. I looked around the empty tables appreciating the absence of noise and noted a familiar stranger sitting at the table next to ours; a tall, dark figure that I so often see walking along a road I travel in his familiar formal attire. My husband had interviewed this man once at his place of business and shared with me the stranger’s over-qualified credentials from a professionally scripted resume carried along with his worldly possessions in a nondescript backpack. Even without my husband’s insight the man’s posture tells a story of one whose footsteps have traversed a full life. His well-worn suit lends an air of self-respect; his long, but not unkept hair implies a spirit free of convention; a curious attentiveness communicates intelligence. I imagine his stories would occupy an afternoon, but despite his openness he seems steeped in solitude. Without ceremony my husband requested a meal of the man’s choosing be provided privately. The space between our tables might have been miles apart for the chasm between us, but there is a bridge of humanity that connects each of us in small, unassuming acts like breaking bread.