you can always go....downtown

This afternoon I needed a break from school and responsibilities and life... so I got on my bike and rode to the downtown mall.

I bought a fruit cup and sat on my bike in the shade eating it.

I rode happily past shops and fountains and people on benches until a very nice police officer reminded me I'm not supposed to ride my bike on the mall (I already knew it, of course).

So I locked up my bike and walked to the Goodwill Thrift store. I was doing a little dissociating, looking through a pile of miscellaneous items on a table, which included belts, scarves, socks, and (oddly) some random underwear. There was a little girl about seven years old at the same table. She was picking up the pieces of underwear she found particularly amusing, showing them to me, and then giggling. She had big dark eyes, messy brown curls, and profoundly chubby cheeks.

To her extreme delight she found a pair of pink and purple polka-dot panties, complete with ruffles. She looked at me and said, "I'm gonna get these for my brother."

"Really..." I said. "And will your brother actually wear them?"

Her eyes showed a glimmer of mischief and then darted over to where her mother was doing a little dissociating of her own and thereby clueless to what her daughter was telling a perfect stranger. The little girl looked back at me, smiled slyly, and said in a somber tone, "My brother actually wears my mother's bras."

I got back on my bike, waved to a wrinkled up old dark-skinned man in a fedora who told me Jesus is coming back "real soon" and rode home.

Somehow my day was brightened and I felt completely renewed.