When I met Millicent today, she greeted me with a warm hug and a sense of joy that I felt unworthy of. “Mayaaaaa !!! Its so good to see you !” she exclaimed. Why? I want to ask her. This is also a question I want to ask anyone who follows me on twitter. Of course, I don’t actually ask the question. Of Millicent, or of the unwary new followers. Why encourage an analysis whose only result can be the reduction of some inconsequential happiness? So I said nothing of this mental churn, and just smiled back at her. We spoke of this and that.

When we first met, I was walking and dreaming. I stopped to smell some lavender. Millicent walked right into me. I apologized profusely. She was elderly. I was dreaming. “Don’t they smell wonderful” she said, excusing me with a smile.

The next time we met, we spoke of fashion. I imagined her closet, probably full of lovely clothes collected over the years. I thought of my own closet, with the attires from tar-zhay , and the results of a recent obsession with colorful cotton skirts. I held forth, undaunted. I dredged forth a story that a fashion savvy co-worker once told me about finding amazing clothes at estate sales in the city. She looked disturbed, but to her credit managed to make some interesting conversation out of that. We exchanged names. I forgot hers immediately. (In truth, all I am sure of is that her name, like mine, starts with the letter M. I titled this piece “Meeting Millicent” because I think that might be her name, and because these musings, devoid of gadgetry and intrigue, would never fulfill the expectations of an article titled “Meeting M”.)

When we ran into each other again, I was with my younger son. She introduced herself to him. I promptly forgot her name again. We talked of this and that. My son seemed surprised by the warmth he sensed from this stranger. Between work and home, our social life is wasteland. “Who was that ?” he asks me a little later. Just some one I met while walking, I tell him.

I was on my way to Walgreens again today, to get my cleaning supplies and my guilt reads, when I ran into her. She greeted me by name, of course. We talked about the weather. The drought. The possibility of rain. Then she sent me on my way, so I could finish my shopping and get home before it got dark.

Years ago, on a train from Buffalo to Washington, I met someone else. I was at the end of my dissertation work that spanned many many years. I was close to graduating, but not nearly close enough. I was getting ready for my wedding, to my boy friend of several years. Everything in my life seemed to be moving with ever increasing slowness towards an unsurprising end. The lady on the train told me a little about herself. She had been married twice. The first husband was abusive, and now (thankfully) deceased. The second, made her happy. She said this in a way that made it certain that I would hug this person if I ever met him. I gave her a run down of my story. “Why!, you are at the beginning of everything” she said to me. And just like that, I was.