Tragic Isolated Incident or the Beginnings of Spring Romance?
Today I was running late to my Shakespearean Adaptations course. I live close to campus - it's approximately a nine-minute walk from my pad - so I typically walk to school in the morning. Though icy cold, the stretch of road from my house to school was nearly entirely free of ice.
Except for a patch on the sidewalk opposite to the school.
Earlier, I had crossed to the sidewalk because the other side of the road does not have a sidewalk. It does have a narrow bike lane that I usually walk on, but it had a coat of frozen snow. Dangerous to walk on. Hence, crossing to the sidewalk.
For some reason, I became mesmerized by the rectangular sheet of ice, thinking, "I could slip on that, eh?" But because the walk had been unproblematic until just then, and I haven't fallen because of ice for some years now here in the Midwest, I internally replied to myself: "Nah. It doesn't look dangerous or too slick." I did not step on it because I was mesmerized by it. I stepped on it because there was no way of getting around it: it fully covered a rectangular portion of the sidewalk
And so I fell. Literally on my ass. Hard.
I was shocked, an electrically cold pain shooting into my hand, my left buttock sounding like it had cracked. After a moment of dazed silence, I got up. Since I was running late to class, I shook it off. About 30 seconds after I fell, I became conscious that a car was pulling up next to me, and somehow I had sensed on a secondary level - my immediate level of awareness taken hostage by sensorial pain - that this car had made a U-turn. I absentmindedly thought, as I straightened up and shook off small rocks from my hands: "These Midwesterners are so nice. It's probably a nice suburban mom who will show concern for me." I looked up as the last of the rocks fell back to whence they came, to see the car pull up.
A door opens.
I see a very pretty woman, eyes turned on me, hands on steering wheel, a gentle look of concern on her face. At the time I was attempting to process the pain and calculating how late I was running for class; and only later, while discussing the incident with colleagues during lunch, did I process my immediate impressions of the encounter.
She had bright red lipstick. I usually do not like red lipstick on women, or red lipstick that ends up looking garish. But on her, for the first time in terms of everyday women (meaning, not models on TV or in print), the red lipstick appeared to be perfectly tinted, the color melding seamlessly with the lovely shape of her lips. She had big pleasant eyes. She was the very figure of what 'pretty' means.
She said, "I'm so sorry you fell. The snow and ice..." she said apologetically, as if Midwestern weather conditions were partly under her jurisdiction. "Oh, wow. You know--wow--you're very sweet to turn back," I said, not really knowing what to say.
I was now partly in shock because of her kindness. And because I had not expected to be met with the beguilingly pretty lass before me.
She appeared to be in her early thirties. She went on a little bit, and then said, "Can I give you a ride somewhere?" I sheepishly said, "Well, I work here at the college," being not more than 15 feet away from the corner of the school. She shrugged as if to say, "It's no problem for me." So I hastily said, "OK" and quickly got in.
During the short interim of the drive - a minute or less, perhaps? - she said, casually and intimately, "You know I've watched you walk many times in the mornings..." I turned to her with a big smile, "Oh yeah?" She smoothly continued," Yeah. And I must say: you don't wear enough layers. It's too cold for you to be walking without a jacket." I was...confused, or disoriented, because of the fall plus the quite unexpected encounter with the sweetest woman I may have ever encountered. I felt like I was in a dream.
I said, again not knowing what to say, "Yeah, you're right, I need to wear more layers. What can I say? I'm from California." She smiled, never once losing her composure or showing fear or concern at the familiarity - maybe intimacy - animating our brief discussion. I had felt something stir when she said she had seen me walk many times...the idea of this pretty woman having noticed me several times during the early mornings, and partly based on that, had been compelled to pick me up, a perfect stranger, after my fall...it was too odd and wonderful for words, consequently triggering some primal masculine tendency in me that propelled me to impress her somehow. I said, as we were arriving to the building that houses my office, "Yeah, I'm a professor here, and my name is ____." She did look impressed I must say, and then she said, "My name is ___ and I work at ___."
I was sorry to see her go, but the pressing need to get to class overpowered me. I rapidly noted that she did not have a ring on.
I fist bumped her because of COVID, both of us smiling for a few seconds, as if some words needed to be said, but thinking of my students, I quickly got down from the car and limped away. I should have asked for her number. I should have told her to lets get coffee.
I cannot for the life of me recall her name or the company she works at. I'm drawing zeros. I don't know why. It really, really sucks. I'm sad about it, actually.
So, even though I teach at 11:30am tomorrow, which means I usually head to school at 10:45am, I will begin walking at 7:50am so as to be right around the spot where where I fell at the same time she would have seen me yesterday.
If you know me, you know that me and my pillow are on familiar and intimate terms, and that I only get out of bed until I have to. So, this is big. And it will be snowing and very cold. But I have to.
I can't stop thinking about her.