So, Saint Patrick's Day has come and gone.
It was a unseasonably beautiful March day: sunny, bright and warm, and the sun certainly brought everyone out of the woodwork. The front yards in student neighbourhoods were a sea of green shirts, short-shorts and plastic beer cups. Line-ups for some bars began at noon and driving down any street in the city was nerve-wracking, as drunken adventurers were leaping across the road like suicidal green lemmings. I spent the entire beautiful day cooped up indoors, and I was cranky.
I don't know what I was expecting St. Paddy's Day was going to look like in this double university town, but this certainly exceeded any of my expectations I may have had. Being completely sober, I felt like a cast member of Star Trek, dropped in on an alien planet, trying to blend in so I wasn't shot with a laser ray and sacrificed to some sort of lepercaun-looking god. I felt like a washed up William Shatner, who hadn't yet discovered the power of irony.
So, what is the point in me writing about this?
Well, the cab ride home that left me with the biggest grin on my face.
It is amazing how a genuinely kind and friendly, happy conversation for no other reason than being happy in the moment can put a restless heart at ease; how a familiar accent can feel like a warm hug from a family member and sharing a snapshot of a person's life can be more of a connection than you'll ever make with some of the people you work with. How all those little things can make you snap-out of your temporary delusion of un-happy, and make you realize how fortunate you really are.
Dear Jimmy the Cab Driver. If you can make Waterloo work for you, so can I.
No comments:
Post a Comment