At the Market

I had a really amazing experience this morning on my way to work. I
stopped at the farmer's market to buy yummy apples and cider. It was
particularly windy and cold, and to keep spirits warm I started goofing
off and having fun with the girls who run the apple stand. We're talking
about all the tourists with their cameras and getting into their
pictures. One of them says that a guy with a movie camera came through
and asked to film them. They said sure, got a good laugh, and that was
that.

I turn away from the stand to walk toward work. This beautiful hippie
boy walks past me and smiles very big and says hello. I stop, and we
start chatting. He is beaming from ear to ear and gives me a really
sweet and tender hug. First thing, he asks if he can take a picture of
the two of us together. Of course, I say, and am just floored by what is
happening. He takes out a camera - a video camera - and starts filming
the inscription in the sidewalk, reading it aloud into the camera. The
girl from the apple stand walks up, "That's the guy! That's the one I
told you about! How funny! Do you KNOW him?" "Absolutely not!" I joke,
but also serious - this completely kind stranger is making my morning
light up.

We chat a bit more about music, the decline of San Francisco hippie
culture, and his hometown in Asheville, North Carolina, which I have
visited a few times. He tells me that he has done speed a few times
since he's been here, and that "San Francisco doesn't have any good
drugs" (he doesn't know where to look, but I kept silent). He had a bit
of an edge, like too many years of a few too many hits of acid. I
decided I didn't want to try and establish any other contact outside of
this experience, but did ask him how long he'd be in town to see if that
went anywhere. Regardless, he had a heart of gold.

He said he'd been a bit depressed after coming off the speed a day or
two earlier, and that my just being there had lifted him out of it and
inspired him. He kept hugging me sweetly, kissing me on the face and the
neck, which was quite hot. I was a bit antsy, as lots of people I work
with take this route to work, so my guard went up a bit, but fortunately
not enough to prevent receiving his warm, tangy, skinny hippieboyishness
into myself and my morning. Blessings to the gods for beings who share
of themselves openly at any given moment.