Another Conversation with a Stranger

When I turned from one side of the Decherd street toward the other, a woman hesitated to walk in front of me and my camera. I lowered it.

She paused and said, "Nice day for a walk, isn't it?"

"It is! It's lovely. I like to walk too."

"Good for the spirit and the body!"

I nodded. "I take a walk every day."

She smiled. "Young people. They sit around and sit around. If they don't get up and move, how will they get up when they're old?" 

I laughed. "So true!"

"Nice view," she said, looking across the street where I had focused. "Enjoy yourself!"

"Enjoy the day!"

She continued up the street.

I took the picture, but now when I look at it, I see her too -- bony, but healthily; her wrinkles pronounced, deep, like the lines an artist might make with a thin Sharpie; lively eyes; dyed black hair, a bit below the shoulder, parted just off center where a small widow's peak of white-white hair lifted.

A beautiful woman, surprisingly genial, genteel even, like the empty storefronts -- old but glowing.