Inept

Early this afternoon I went for a pre-Thanksgiving walk in my neighborhood wearing red sneakers, black athletic pants, a black fleece pullover, sunglasses and a set of headphones that conspicuously covered my ears. The sun was out and it was in the upper 50's and I wandered over to Cheesman Park a few blocks away. Others were out enjoying the day - families with their dogs, couples and other solo park visitors. I walked up a slight incline to the pavilion, an area that has a cluster of tall columns covered by a roof, to get a view of the mountains. Spotting a bench, I sat down and watched my surroundings.

A man wearing a bright red outfit, including a red cap, drove back and forth in a pale yellow convertible along the road that bifurcates the park. It appeared that he was calling attention to himself but I was unsure what kind. A bit downslope from me, a 60-something man in a plaid flannel shirt, beige baseball cap, and tan chinos sat on the edge of the fountain and spoke on his cell phone. Two women, wearing bright pink shirts and carrying bundles of twigs, perhaps for a late afternoon fire, approached and sat on another bench. Up close they appeared to be mother and daughter. After a few minutes they, too, moved on.

Then the man in the flannel shirt came over and excused himself. I still had my headphones on yet he did not take that as a sign that I did not wish to be disturbed.

"Do you know if this is a gay park?" he asked.

I truly did not know the answer and I also did not know if he was a gay basher, simply a curious out of towner, or looking for action.

"I don't know," I said, looking at him more carefully. There was nothing slick about him. His eyeglasses looked as if they were from the previous decade, his clothing was clean but well-worn. His appearance was as bland and ordinary as they come, his rough and wrinkled skin offering little color contrast to his beige cap.

"Well, I asked two young women and they said they were bisexual and so I thought that maybe this is a gay park," he continued, as if by telling me this information I'd be willing to provide him some corroboration.

"I have no idea," I replied. Then I wondered if the red-clad man in the convertible had been, in fact, cruising for fun in broad daylight.

The man in the flannel then sat down on my bench, leaving about a person's width between us. I did not feel threatened by him so I stayed put, enjoying my view of the mountains. For several minutes we sat in silence and I wondered if was planning to leave or not. There were other benches around and if he had simply wanted to sit somewhere he could have chosen his own private spot. After an awkward interval he stood up.

"Sorry to bother you," he said, "I just thought that maybe this was a place where gay men came looking for sex."

"Why are you asking me?" I retorted, allowing my annoyance to show, adding, "Clearly I'm not a man."

He muttered something about bisexuals and wandered off.

Inexplicable, Implausible

I rarely lose things. Sure, I've been known to misplace things, for minutes, hours, day, weeks or months at a time. Inevitably, most of these temporarily missing items reappear when I least expect them to. At those moments I breathe a sigh of relief, both for not having completely lost my mind and for the restoration of the object to my life. But it has been months since a new, high quality black moisture wicking t-shirt has gone missing; after checking the washer and dryer I use in the basement of my art studio building, I went through all of my drawers, peered under my bed, ransacked my closet, and checked the lost and found at my yoga studio. Nada. It had disappeared. For awhile I tortured myself over my possible carelessness - maybe I had let my laundry linger in the washing machine and someone had helped themselves while I was upstairs, making art. And then I realized that I should not cause myself to suffer over a t-shirt, even if I had snagged it for just $15 at the GoLite gear sale shortly after moving to Colorado. Eventually I moved on, or so I thought.

But this morning, while getting dressed for a hike, I was looking for the sports bra I had purchased at that same gear sale and could not find it. I had just done a load of laundry at my studio and it was not among the clothing that I had scooped from the dryer and placed into my nylon laundry bag. Not again?! I chose something else to wear and left for the day. Returning to my apartment in the late afternoon, I found myself obsessing over this second missing piece of athletic gear, the same brand as that t-shirt. Not wishing to wait another day to possibly solve this mystery, I walked to my studio building this evening to check the washer and dryer. Both were empty.

My brain is trying to devise an explanation for the fact that two pieces of GoLite gear have vanished within in a few months of one another under similar circumstances. While it is possible that someone has helped themselves to my laundry, I can't imagine who it would be. Most of the artists in my building rarely venture into the basement, where the machines are located, and none of them are my size, not to mention that I have no basis to distrust them. And there have been more valuable pieces of clothing available for the picking, so even if someone were sneaking around and harvesting my stuff, why wouldn't they take more or different things?

Realizing I could drive myself crazy attempting to recover these items, I am going to try (again) to let go of these perplexing episodes, following the advice suggested by the brand itself. I will "GoLite", moving ahead without being bogged down by the mystery of my missing clothes.

I-Ching, of the Torah

Tonight I celebrated Simchat Torah, which marks the completion of the yearly cycle of Torah reading, with congregation Nevei Kodesh in Boulder. In true Jewish Renewal style there was joyful dancing, praying and singing during each of the hakafot, or processionals. Except these weren't really processionals, where a select group of people carry the Torah scrolls around a synagogue. It was more like a casual prom where everyone got to dance with the popular partners which, in this case, were one of half a dozen Torah scrolls, one of which was a few hundred years old and had survived the Holocaust. Each hakafa had its own theme and accompanying music, ranging from Hassidic niggunim (chants) to a Jewish version of "My Dear Lord". Depending on the tune, some people waltzed, others sashayed, and some swayed slowly with their Torahs. Unlike last year, where I stood on the sidelines, I borrowed someone's tallis, embraced a Torah and did some shimmying myself.

After the hakafot we unfurled a Torah scroll around the edges of the room, each of us holding up a portion of the parchment so that we created a circle. In the middle, where the text was visible, several rabbis - including Reb Zalman - gathered to perform an I-Ching-like ritual. People holding the Torah would point to a passage on the parchment in front of them and one of the rabbis would translate the verse which, much like an oracle, would help us find guidance for the coming year. Since it is quite difficult to read Hebrew calligraphy upside down, let alone figure out where in the Torah a meaningful verse might be, the ritual was pretty random.

So imagine my delight when Reb Zalman himself came over to my section of the scroll, and then my complete surprise when he translated the verse to which I had randomly pointed. It turned out to be the same verse (Deuteronomy 30:19) that my father used to quote, part of which appears on his headstone. In brief, the message I received was: Choose Life.

OK, God! I think I am finally getting the message.

Interstate: I.D.I.O.T.S.

On the second day of my trip I whizzed through the rest of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana before getting to Evanston, Illinois. The scenery was mostly bucolic, with the exception of stinky Gary, Indiana, but at a spotless and contemporary rest stop in Ohio I spotted a trio of wide women wearing lavender T-shirts that said on the back:

I lluminated
D aughters
I nspired
O f
T he
S pirit

On the front was a cross.

I didn't have the chutzpah to ask them why they were self-described idiots.

Intersections

Streets intersect, as do people. Streets intersect in a more or less predictable way. There are stop or yield signs or traffic lights to signal the presence of an intersection. Crossing the intersection, on foot, by bicycle or by car, one travels linear distance but usually remains fundamentally unchanged. When two people intersect, however, it is often much more random, the signs and signals more subtle, and the impact on their lives potentially large.

Last week I was sitting in an independently owned cafe in Denver, drinking a decaffeinated coffee and taking advantage of free wireless access to search apartment and real estate listings. A friendly looking man with a baseball cap approached me and asked me if I were Rachel, someone he knew up in Boulder. No, I said, but I reassured him that people mistake me for others all the time. I didn't think too much of it - people in Colorado tend to be quite outgoing and I didn't sense that he was using that as a pick up line. I smiled at him and returned to my web surfing.

The following day, a Friday, I returned to that same cafe to check my e-mail; I was waiting for some documents from a realtor. They didn't come, and I didn't hear from her so I left the cafe. Driving around, I found a funky ice cream place shaped like an old fashioned milk bottle. While indulging in some gelato, the realtor called and told me she needed my electronic signature within the hour. Not wanting to waste time finding a different venue with wireless, but also hating to retrace my steps, I reluctantly returned to the cafe, somewhat regretul that I was filled with gelato yet would still need to order something to take advantage of the WiFi. I bought another decaf coffee, opened my laptop and logged on.

The man with the baseball cap came in - or maybe he was already there? I can't recall - and we acknowledged each other. I figured he was a regular at this congenial establishment; there were a couple of other people there I recognized from the day before. He sat a few tables away, occupied with a paperback book. At around 5:00pm the cafe was beginning to empty out. I had concluded my business but something kept me there, even though there were other places I could have gone to spend the evening. He came over and asked me what sort of work I was doing. I told him I was in the process of moving and was looking for a place to live. He then asked me if I'd join him for a drink at a place whose name I didn't quite catch and, even if I had, I probably wouldn't have recognized. I agreed, having no idea what sort of place it would be.

The exchange was quite simple but also unusual. He later told me that he never approaches women in cafes, and that he had returned on Friday in order to find me, and I confessed that I usually don't get picked up in cafes. I think we were both a bit surprised to find ourselves seated across from one another at his neighborhood restaurant, where he's built a reputation as a regular. Being in transition, with major pieces of my life up in the air, I am taking things one day at a time, relying more heavily on my intuition than on my intellect. I am not operating from an ego-driven identity right now. I am just trying to be with whatever happens each day and see where that takes me. This man later said that he had responded to my energy of just being. Had my ego been in charge, it probably would have declined the invitation, coming up with all sorts of "reasons" why going to a place I didn't know with a stranger would be a bad idea.

Just being didn't feel particularly special to me; I was not happy or sad, elated or excited. I was not trying to get anywhere, I didn't have an agenda. I was certainly curious about this man, with whom I ended up spending the next five hours in thoughtful conversation, but I was aware of not creating a story around our encounter, not getting caught up in the what ifs or spinning scenarios about what might happen next. It was refreshing to just spend time with him, enjoying the mutual appreciation and exploration without tinging our encounter with anxiety about whether we'd meet again.

In this rare place of being in the moment, with neither of us trying to impress or otherwise play a role, this man said some extraordinary things to me, about how he perceived me. I was so surprised that I started to blush. Perhaps the Universe had orchestrated my intersection with this man, arranging for us to provide each other with psychic boosts at, for me at least, a critical time.

Identical, almost

Sometimes when I have a few extra minutes on my hands I'll scroll through my cell phone address book and delete those numbers that I'm no longer calling. I'll often store numbers in my phone for future reference, such as that of a local cafe I had called once to find out when it was open. But having extra people, places and numbers just clutters up my screen and makes it that much slower to locate the numbers I do want.

In a recent purge I chose to remove the name and contact information of a man I had dated a few years ago. He lives in Boston part of the time, in the Southern Hemisphere the rest of the time, and he used to call me after making his annual trip north. I originally decided to store his name so that I'd know that it was him calling, rather than being caught by surprise at the sound of his voice. Sometimes I was happy to hear from him, other times less so, and it was useful to be able to choose whether to answer...or not. But enough time has passed since his last phone call that I decided to hit the erase button and send his details to the wireless dustbin of history.

Knowing that the Universe is somewhat mischievous and often tests me, for example having ex-boyfriends e-mail me days after I've deleted their e-mail addresses, I was not all that surprised to see his number appear on my phone today. Amused, I answered, expecting to hear his voice. It turned out not to be him after all, but my new downstairs neighbor calling me to ask if I still had anything stored in the basement. No, I said.

Our brief conversation concluded, I again looked at her phone number. It appeared to be exactly the same as this man's. Was it possible that she had inherited his old number? Unlikely, I thought. A few days earlier, in my sorting and packing I had found a piece of paper that had his contact information on it; I hadn't yet thrown it out. Locating the paper and comparing the phone numbers, I noticed that they were identical except for one digit. Where there had been a "2" in his number appeared a "3" in hers.

If she calls me again, I will probably think of him, which was what I was trying to avoid in the first place.

Interlapse

The lapse of time between two events.

In November of 2006 I designed and printed a 5.5"x8.5" postcard to announce my holiday studio hours and crafts shows for my jewelry design business. Some of these cards I mailed, others I left at various cafes and still others I had available at my studio. Today, more than 13 months later, I received one of these postcards in my studio mailbox. What made this interlapse all the more intriguing is that I was not the sender of this postcard. Someone's father had used my postcard - which doesn't have a lot of extra room on it - to send a greeting to his children, or to a child and his/her partner. How do I know the person was a dad? He wrote, "Jeanne, Warren, Thanks for the all the goodies. Dad."

And someone else - possibly the dad's partner or another family member - had written a longer message on the lower right of the postcard, beneath the addresses. Yes, there were two addresses, the first one scratched out to make way for the second. There were also two stamps, one on top of the other - a Purple Heart stamp (2007) over a Ronald Reagan stamp (2006). If I were to assume that this person is like me and chooses stamps that reflect their values or tastes, then I would conclude that this person is a Republican who values the military, was once enlisted him/herself or is close to people who did. I am also going to assume that the dad was not the person in charge of communicating via this postcard - what kind of a dad would be so cheap that he'd hijack a jewelry designer's marketing collateral for his own purposes, scrawling in the margins? And I imagine that the dad would know the correct address for his child(ren). I am betting that this other person, who signs the card just as "B", had the bright idea of encroaching on my marketing real estate and using it to deliver his or her news.

The presence of two stamps suggests that the postcard was mailed once, with an incorrect address, and then returned...to whom? and to where? And when it was returned mysteriously to the sender, whose address is not on the card, this person then put a new address and used a fresh stamp, eclipsing most of Ronald Reagan's face, sending the postcard on its second journey.

The handwritten date on the postcard is 12/22/06. On 12/29/2007 it was stamped by a postal machine. My hypothesis is that the senders wrote the postcard in 2006 and put a stamp on it. It sat around for a year, by which time postal rates had gone up, so they plopped a second stamp on top of the first, rather than bothering to go to the post office and pay a few extra pennies for supplemental postage. And by this time the addressees had moved, so the original address was crossed out and another one inked in. But this second address was still not correct and on 1/15/08 it landed in my mailbox. If you have other theories, please let me know!