Coincidence
Just got in from my nightly walk. Halloween isn’t the best possible night for walking around. It’s a bit crowded, especially if you go as early as I did. There are lots of little people in strange clothes underfoot, and some of the pretty redheaded girls you see aren’t actually pretty redheaded girls.
The nightly walk was my second walk of the day, though. Earlier today I walked into Carytown to go to Ukrops (or, well, Martin’s…I haven’t gotten used to calling it that yet) to get myself a decent salad. Four straight days at my new job and even though I haven’t gotten my first paycheck yet I felt like I needed to treat myself, and it’s been a while since I had a proper salad.
The Fan District is a fairly large neighborhood, and is divided in half. The Lower Fan, where I live, is the eastern part. The Upper Fan (which realtors insist on calling the Museum District) is the part west of the Boulevard. Carytown runs the length of, and is the southern border of, the Upper Fan, and Ukrops is at the far western end of it. So, it’s a pretty decent walk from my place, about 45 minutes or so.
But it was a beautiful day, one that made the effort a pleasure in itself. We have had our first cold days here, but summer is still hanging on, and I thought as I walked that it was nice to live in a city where, as November is about to begin, you have to be sure to walk on the shady side of the street.
I was listening to my new audiobook, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, while I walked. If you haven’t read it, most of the main characters are Jewish, and there’s a section in the middle where the main character is talking about his grandmother, a member of some obscure Hasidic sect living in a strange little throwback village in New Jersey. That was the section I was listening to as I crossed Dooley Street, and faintly I heard music that fitted with the story so well that I thought it was background music for the story. But I stopped the iPod and still heard it, and looking around I saw a guy on the second floor of one of the buildings I considered while looking for an apartment when I first moved back here. He was sitting on his balcony singing traditional Yiddish songs (I think--my German is pretty rusty, but they didn't sound like Braukeller songs) and accompanying himself on the accordion. It was absolutely perfect.
I stopped walking for a few moments. I started the audiobook again with him as background music and relished the coincidence, and was glad to be home.