Bowl 28: Alex

 

Sometimes it's smooth sailing!

In New York for Thanksgiving weekend,

I need to go from Yorktown to Levittown

then into the city

I anticipate gridlock. . . and find none . . . 

then, driving 'cross 21st street a free, on-street, parking spot emerges. . . 

the gods must be with me!

I grab my bag with bowl and camera

with little hope of an encounter on a chilly day in chilly NYC

but turning the corner, outside a cafe,

a man sits singing to his toddler,

"cold, cold, cold it's cold," he chants . . . 

and she giggles.

We chat for a while, then his wife emerges from the cafe,

a tiny infant snuggled against her chest . . . 

I do a quick calculation.

"She must have been born right around the time of the storm," I surmise . . . 

A week before, they say . . . it was pretty tough living without power for a week with a newborn.

But they are smiling . . . like everyone I've talked to who weathered the storm . . .

This human life . . . so fragile, so resilient, so unpredictable. 

Sometimes we weather the storms,

and sometimes it's smooth sailing.