Fifteen Seconds Is Time Enough

Back in my third interregnum (second by some historical reckoning), I found myself having left a large and lovely house and renting a 75-year-old “garden” apartment with windows at ground level facing the parking lot, letting the exhaust in and the privacy out. The building was filled with older single women, law students, and old wood, reminding me of that passage in A Movable Feast, “and like a fool I did not knock on wood. There was wood everywhere in that apartment to knock on too.”

In my past was a job at a wonderfully boring company doing important, wonderfully boring things. Like reluctant lovers, boring companies yearn to be more interesting and they invite in excitement only to find themselves scared by and rejecting it when it comes.

My ex-wife was a delightful woman who taught me the inevitability that heroes breed dependency and dependency builds resentment.

The corporate job and large house of other people’s dreams were marshmallow memories, all fluff and sugar with no substance, ushering a glorious, if chaotic, untethered time. Tossed into the briar patch.  

What I yearned for most was weather. I no longer knew weather, I only saw it from my office window. Without an office, or windows, or much reason to drive, knowing weather again meant being outside in any weather.

Near my cozy hobbit hole was the heart of town, thriving with endless restaurants of every imaginable cuisine, little shops full of high-end clothes, knickknacks and everything the affluent think they need. It was as delightful, and benign, a place as one could hope to land.

Town was as close as the far side of a busy crosswalk. 25 seconds to cross 4 lanes seemed like an extravagant amount of time. Time for the very young or the infirm to cross, more than ample time for those in the prime of life. Time enough to build something a piece at a time.

In that easy way when you first meet people, but don’t really know them, back when it’s so easy to talk to people because there are no stakes and it’s all sunny skies and endless opportunities. Before the harsh realities set in, the social groups having to approve of you, the judging of your background and choice of partner, or lack thereof. Back before they worry about how being seen with you will reflect on them. Back then I had become acquainted with various people nearby.

Crossing into town one day, I noticed on the other side a friend, for someone whose name you know and who you aren’t negatively inclined towards is automatically a friend. The walk sign flashed 25 and the bird, signifying it was time to walk, started to chirp.

We met in the middle, said “hi”. We made sure we had each other’s names correct, then, with five seconds left, and a need to reach the sidewalk before the light turned green and the drivers, worried they might be late for their meditation class, started honking at us, we went our opposite ways.

We crossed at a different time the next day, going our opposite directions. And again a few days later. Soon we would laugh and smile at the sheer absurdity of how often we met in the crosswalk.  

Five seconds to the middle of the crosswalk, fifteen seconds to talk and five seconds to get out before the light changed. In those fifteen seconds I learned about how she’d endured the local Catholic school so many years ago, her mother staying in the nearby house until her frail frame gave out. By the time the chill of winter came and reminded us we were alive with every cold breath, I knew she was looked after by Jesus, was happy she didn’t knock wood in her marriage and deeply loved her purposefully far-away family. She never shared her complaints or regrets. I like to believe that she had none.

In the Crosswalk, you can’t overstay your welcome, or bore the other person, no need for fancy conversation starters or worry about what to do in a lull. In the crosswalk you simply share with the other how happy you are to see them, pass a little love and move on. A quick hug with no strings attached.

She lived in my building, she may live there still, but we only ever met in the crosswalk, moving opposite directions. One day she told me her business was closing and soon I was always across the road before the timer hit 20, the remaining seconds lost forever.