There once was a little old lady...

Have you ever noticed those little moments when your life intersects with another person - a stranger - on a regular basis?  The first time I ever noticed it was as a child, when I would stare out the window on the bus or during the morning carpool and I would see the same people every day going about their own daily routines.  In high school, my carpool would drive by a certain bus stop on the way to school, the same three people would be waiting for the same bus when we drove by.  I never knew who they were or where they were going or anything about them at all, but they mattered to me because I saw them every single day in the same place.

When that started to happen here, it made me feel as if we belonged.  We were no longer outsiders looking in, this was our home, our town, our people.  When I leave to pick up the children from school every day, I can tell if I'm early or late based on where the old man walking his dog is on his route.  On Sunday morning, the same husband and wife walk by our house every week at 9h30, with their walking sticks, clearly on their way for their weekly hike at the chateau.  There are two old shetland ponies that live somewhere on the other side of town.  Their owners take them for walks and they just passed by our window for their Sunday walk.

There is one little old lady that I see regularly, that has become a hero of sorts.  She is short, but not too short.  She is not fat, but she's not thin either.  She has glasses and short gray hair that she wears in a perm, but often it is covered with a rain scarf just like my grandma used to have.  I usually see her on the route to or from school, about half way between our house and the school.  She is usually dressed in a skirt, with nylons, black short "sensible" boots and a gray trench coat.  Sometimes I see her walking, pulling her grocery tote along behind her.  I've seen her hitchhiking once or twice, which makes me smile and think of my Great Aunt Rosella who used to hitchhike from Belle Plaine to bingo at Mystic Lake.  But my absolute favorite of all, is when I see her on her white motor scooter.  She wears a matching white helmet that seems to fit just right over her black glasses.  And she honks the little "beep beep" horn at everyone she passes along the way.

That's it, my mind is made up.  When I'm 80, I'm going to get myself the motor scooter that my parents forbid me to have when I was 16, and I'm going to ride around town and "beep beep" the horn at everyone I see.