Water

The water feels cool on my feet. We are together but silent. It is a comfortable silence, yet I feel the strangeness of being in a different city, surrounded by people and places I've never seen before. Two girls in old fashioned looking dresses and oddly modern haircuts glide slowly through the water. Children scream and splash around them but somehow sense that the girls are coming and move out of the way, an almost graceful dance. One of these children smiles at me and for the first time I can imagine being a mother. It's a strange feeling, one that I never seem to have or maybe I'm just afraid of thinking it. This place is making me think about things I don't normally think about, and I'm seeing a reflection of someone who doesn't quite seem to be me. Or maybe it is me, maybe I'm seeing a glimpse of who I really am or who I should be, I guess I don't know anymore. The water is cool on my feet and children are screaming. Strange looking girls glide and I am with a friend yet alone.

Quiet

He's sitting there watching them work. Dirty and quiet. Unassuming. Reverent. It's as if he's watching an artist at work rather then some men dumping rock outside a garage. He’s making a memory that I have interrupted, walking by, obscuring his view. We make eye contact and he gives me a slight nod. A gift of acknowledgement to prove that he saw me, that I am forgiven for my intrusion into this moment that was his. Now it has become ours, in a way. I give a faint smile in response, an apology. The quietness of him is still here, hours later. It has wrapped itself around me and made me its own.