This moment of me and a stranger happened yesterday March 3, 2010 (before I got tipsy LOL)
I know I should have do this "memoir" in chronicle order but I really want to share this one now. So I was on the subway ride, doing some reading, suddenly, I noticed this little girl and her mom sitting diagonally across from where I sat.
She was one curious girl, turning all around, looked all around, she knelled on the seat, reaching out her pink mitten covered hand onto the glass window and excited about how the patterns of the concrete walls look when the train slowed down to a stop. She was so happy to show her mom about the moving images at the window. This caught my attention whenever a kid do that, cos it reminds me of the time when I was the same - I used to looked into the moving walls in the subway tunnel back in HK. Now I don't do it cos I get so used to it and it gives me dizziness if I stare into the moving walls too long. hahahha.
Anyway. So I took my eyes off my book and somehow me and this little girl's eyes met. I don't know why and I don't know how, I smile at her instantly, and she did the same. It was a genuine smile, not a small one, not a big one, just the right one.
I shy away (why? don't ask me), I think I got goosebumps from seeing her smiling at me and my heart skipped too. I took my eyes off her for a second, and the next second I looked to her again. She did the same thing, we smiled at each other again. This time I attempt to make a funny face, I want to play with her. But I guess I failed, she just looked at me hahhahah.
So I looked away. and look at her the third time. This time we still looking at each other, but I added a wave. Cos it's time for me to go. My heart sink for a millisecond, cos I had a lot of fun!
But I know at that short crossing, we liked each other and it was all that matter.
I walked out the train without turning back. and when I walked up the stairs at the station, I had another flashback at the time when I was about 3 years old. I was on the plane flight to Korea with my mom. I cannot remember too many things about the trip (I think I only remember I saw the ceramic pots outside the place where my grandparents used to lived. I remember the black and brown-ears doggie named Barbie on the tatami (don't know what to call in Korean), the staircase that has a window having sun shinning through and the telephone in the wooden box on the wooden panel walls (like the wooden wall hung telephone you see in old Japanese drama), the wood flooring for the entire house, the wooden short table and all the wooden furnitures around it. everything was dark cherry wood in the house, so beautiful and shiny. For my life till now I never seen any flooring and furniture more beautiful than what I remembered) But guess what I remembered the most was some lady who sat behind us in the flight gaving me a piece of "green arrow" gum (still at that time wrapped in paper) when I turned around looked at them. I did not know how that happened, I was probably looking around alot?! but I remember the image of the lady inbetween the flight seats.
So go back to this girl I just met, I told myself - "This is such an amazing feeling". My and her life had crossed, intersected for this special moment, it will never happen again, but it will forever remain a permanent time in our lives.
I might or might not remember this later on. (well I will cos I have good memories about strangers whom I met). She might not even going to remember it. (or she might, like how I remember my entourage when I was 3 years old.)
At this short moment, we had this connection that no one can ever take it away from us.
This has been my feeling to many of my strangers encounter, you meet this nice person at the nice moment and you know that you will probably never meet again. It's sad, but it's memorable and had been putting smiles on me whenever I thought of these moments. Thank you for giving me these special moments in life, strangers!
(There are many many more of my moments with strangers, stay tune! ^_^)
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