Today, I’d like to remember an anonymous person- an old man- who once made contact with me at a crossroad.
I’d just turned in my two week notice to my job in Manhattan after a slew of incidents which included the cut of benefits from a merger, the cut of salary, the re-evaluation of life as dictated by the events of 9-11, and the constant sickness of my new born son. I’d worked since I was twelve and being of a type-A personality, continued to pursue greater existance through work. I’d finalized the last day, which was coinsidentily made for March 15- the Ides of March. The freefall I took extended out to my walk along 6th Ave. I contemplated a whole range of scenarios which would fill my empty head on that walk….
Out of no where a poorly dressed old man comes up in front of me and throws a fist to my midsection, stopping only inches from it. I’d looked up. His face full of grey overgrown whiskers and his wrinkles deep formed a smile. He passed. I looked back at him, and he never looked back.
Being of sound mind (or at least I thought so) I came to see this as a gesture of good fortune. Something about being punched in the gut and smiling, knowing what the future was to hold, knowing what I was feeling…. perhaps this old man was my guardian angel. Giving me the sign, that all the pressures and all the turbulance of one life, work themselves out. It was a strange incident, indeed.
Fortunately, I have creative friends and at the bar, after said incident- I expressed to them how I saw this as a “sign”. Everything I was doing, was meant to be the way it is. It was a crossroad AND I did the right thing, however I saw it leading me into the darkness of what I knew not.
That was seven years ago, and even though it’s passed as if it was yesterday, I remember that old man who brought me an unexpected treasure of memory. For it’s him I look back at, and feel strong enough to say, for whatever reason being, my path as yet defined- was right.
It was the simple gesture of standing in my way- the obstacle, throwing the hypothetical fist- the pain- to an all too indecisive action. The reason as yet undefined, finds itself, when only looking back in retrospect to those crossroads and signs along the way.
As a sidenote, my quick typing misspelled signs as sings. Isn’t that funny? Now, all I need is a new word like ”Gritinw” as writing.