Well, I've told you the story of "C". and I. Let me tell you about that other woman I was mentioning, let's call her "L".
( Funnily enough, for about the first year of my new life as a single man, all the women that entered it came in alphabetical order. It took a long while to break that trend, and I was beginning to think that I was destined to spend the rest of my life waiting to meet a woman named Zelda or Zoey....)
It was the end of winter in 2004, and the first signs of spring had just begun to show. This woman contacted me after seeing my profile on a singles site. I had dated quite a bit by then, and had got to the point where I had just decided to go with the flow. No expectations, just the desire to share a coffee and see where it all could lead.
"L". and I talked on the phone soon after that e-mail, and I found her quite interesting. We decided to meet the next day for a coffee.
That Saturday morning, I awoke to a very nice spring day - one of the first of the year. It was cool, but the promise of warmer weather was showing. I gave "L." a quick call to confirm our time and place to meet, and left the house. I took the subway to the Sherbrooke Street station, and was running a few minutes late thanks to some delays.
As I walked out of the station, I slipped on my cell phone's headset and tucked it under my black wool beanie. I selected her cell number, and pressed "call".
She answered right away, and she was waiting a few blocks away on the corner. She was sitting there enjoying the sun and we chatted as I walked towards her. The streets were packed full of people that were taking advantage of the sudden change in the weather, after all those long months of cold and snow and darkness.
I turned the corner, and there she was. She was very pretty, with shoulder length black hair. Her eyes looked up at me, over her sunglasses - and she smiled. We were dressed almost the same, in jeans and black leather jackets.Two dharma bums on a busy city street. We hugged, and went for a coffee on St. Denis.
It took us both perhaps five minutes to realize that we were mutually interested. It was quickly agreed to go and have supper, and I suggested a restaurant I had heard of.
We walked over, and had a pleasant supper together - discussing anything and everything we could think of. That restaurant has a cozy and serene tea room in the back, and after supper we retired there for some bubble tea and more conversation.
Sitting there on the low cushions, we were almost completely alone. We grew a lot closer, and spend a long time just enjoying each others company, and discovering one another.
After that, we decided to go for a drink at a bar.We walked outside, and it was now quite cold. I wrapped my arm around her shoulder, and she curled hers around my waist. We walked a while, and found a bar. We had some wine and listened to a good blues band for a time, holding hands.
She leaned over, and told me something that no other woman has ever said to me before. It was something that I very much needed to hear, and it will remain forever between the two of us. That one phrase changed my way of thinking about myself, and that for the better.
After that, we went for a long slow walk together along St. Catherine Street. Freezing, we walked into a coffee shop with some comfortable sofas and had some hot chocolate curled up together there. It was a magical night.
We had both missed our last subway, and so we made the decision to spend the rest of the night together until it opened again. We went for a smoked meat together. We wound up passionately discussing Buddhism. She was from the Tibetan school, and I was from the Zen one. The irony of having that discussion over smoked meat was not lost on either of us.
Hours later we were waiting together for the subway to open. We were back outside now, on another glorious sunny spring morning sitting on a bench together. We were in an area of town that had quite a few passing homeless people, and once again "L." had managed to say something to me that caused this moment of satori in my heart and soul.
One second they were just " bums " . After she finished speaking, they became me - and I became them. I saw them for the first time as the people, and the souls, that they really had been all for that time.
It seemed so much like part of some plan. Literally a few minutes later, while I was still reeling from that moment of sudden enlightenment, a rather strange looking homeless man walked up to us - holding a clean winter jacket in his hands.
He was very polite, and he had noticed us sitting together there.
He asked us only one thing. He was dressed warmly, and he didn't need the coat he was holding. He politely asked us if he could leave it on the bench beside ours. His only request to us was that we could tell anyone that wanted it to take it.
And then he walked away...
On cue, about ten minutes later, this East Indian fellow walked by - in shorts. In March... It must have been ten or fifteen degrees Celsius...
He was shivering. I have no idea how, or even why, he could have been dressed like that on such a day. He looked rather surprised at the warm winter coat on the bench beside us, and we motioned to him to take it. We explained all about the man, and his gift.
He took the jacket off the bench, slipped it on over his shoulders, zipped it up - and walked off happy at his sudden change in fortune.
I looked up at that clear blue spring sky, and said a simple thank you for the lesson that I had just received.
There are no coincidences in life, I truly believe that to be the case. There are just messages that we can chose to ignore - or to learn from.
" Thank's L. , for pointing that one out to me."
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