Antimatter.

I am constantly surprised by people. And I don’t know why that should surprise me? We’re fascinating creatures! On Fremont Street this morning, picking up a few souvenirs for my travels to Chicago, and NYC, a man stopped me while crossing the street. He had dark skin, and natural scruff, with swagger so deep I couldn’t tell if limping was a part of his persona, or an adjective of his condition.

“Could you spare a cigarette, m’am?”

South. He’s southern. No one around here says m’am like that anymore – not since the Vegas rat-pack days.

“umm – no, sorry all out.” He waved his hand up towards my face, with a don’t-worry-’bout-it intention, and a breeze uplifted his Hawaiian shirt, taking me along with him in a conversation I had no objective for continuing.

He loved my short hair. Told me it made us women look sophisticated and clean. I suddenly felt like I was a walking shampoo advertisement, leaving a trail of crystalized bubbles behind me. And on Fremont Street, in downtown Las Vegas – that felt pretty nice.

Langston, a cook from Atlanta, GA was looking for a job. “I feel that,” I told him, “But don’t worry, it’ll happen.”

“Oh, yeah, I mean, patience is a virtue…” A saying I’ve been saying since I heard it said. The only statement I’ve equaled as truth, of which I now live my life by, and this man I bumped into, looking for a drag, put it out in the Universe for both of us to hear; both of us to remember.

“I love America-” for which I interrupted with an “I do too -“

“I feel blessed that I’m not recovering from a tsunami, or Hurrican Irene…but I’m not used to being hungry as a cook. Couldn’t I walk into a restaurant, and be a charity case? I mean, we always givin’ to others – that’s why we be a perfect country, but we should maybe become a little more introverted, you know what I’m sayin’?”

He opened his mouth real big when he talked, and his shiny straight rows of pearls fixated me. “Patience is a virtue, right?” for which he laughed, and smiled, bringing his wrist to his mouth, and using extra body language to show me humor.

The people we meet, who we talk to and acquire knowledge from – chance? fate? planned all along? on that particular day? coincidence?

It doesn’t even matter.