Category Archives: Just Me, Being Me

Oh Hair We Go!

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A male friend (who wears locs), commented on a New York Times article regarding US Surgeon General, Dr. Regina Benjamin. The article titled “Surgeon General Calls for Health Over Hair” was commentary on how studies revealed a third of Black women exercised less because they were concerned it would jeopardize their hair. That of these women, 88 percent did not meet the CDC’s guidelines for physical activity, which is 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise each week, or about 20 minutes a day. What pissed me off were his ending comments…

…
Are you one of these sisters? Real talk. Whether you rock a curly hawk or a sew-in special, we honor and respect you. Now get your sneakers and go sweat your perm out! With such an awesome task ahead of her, our hair should not have to be on Dr. Benjamin’s radar. And let’s be clear, this is not a School Daze – straight hair, natural conversation. This is a show-your-daughter-that-sweat-is-your-swagga-and hair-ain’t-your-dagger-conversation. A new priority. A paradigm shift.

I am not commenting on the merits/demerits of the surgeon general’s or the journalist’s comentary (Black women are fat ’cause they got their hair did), but on his.

You have NO idea how it pisses me the fuck off that it’s always the people with wash and wear hair and others who don’t have to deal with our hair every day always telling us what the fuck to do concerning it.

I don’t know any woman who goes to the gym regularly and only does twenty minutes of “moderate” exercise. For those of us that go to a gym to work out, WE WORK OUT. For me, if I’m not doing at least forty minutes on the floor, it’s not worth the time of changing into my sweats. Once my hair gets funky from sweating it’s funky for hours until it eventually peters out or I wash it. I planned my gym days around when I had time to at least damp wash (which is an extra maintenance time unto itself), if not to fully wash my hair.

My hair is thick, when I had it permed bone straight it took three hours to dry naturally. Yes, it only took about an hour with a blow dryer, plus whatever additional curling time if desired, but no woman in her right mind, is going to damage her hair by blow-drying it two or more times a week, every week. Not if she wants to keep her hair. And here’s the irony, even women with a weave need to have some hair to weave it to, so we can’t damage our natural hair underneath by blow-drying it constantly. Even a loctician will tell customers not to heat dry the hair, because it’s damaging. So I need to wait it out.

I currently wear braids, once wet it takes considerably more time to dry than when straight, especially if I want it curled. Even the weather affects drying time. I have washed my hair at 7pm on cold damp days and woke up the next morning at my usual 5am only to find it still damp. Every spring and fall, I risk catching colds for this reason alone. I’ve asked and a lot of my sistas wearing whose hair is long in twists, dreads and locks have similar drying time issues.

A few years ago, I wore my hair in an all-natural Afro for three months one summer. I’m not going to comment on all the societal-political ramifications from such, that’s a blog for another day, but it was the most miserable time I’ve ever had with my hair. If the wind blew strong, it was messed-up. If I leaned back in a tall chair or on the subway, it was messed-up. If I wore a hat, or pushed my sunglasses up, it was messed-up. And like most women, different parts my hair grow and behave differently than others, so sometimes it was just messed-up. I felt I was always in a mirror checking it, making sure it was nicely rounded and I don’t have time in my life for that kind of vanity.

I’m single with adult children, so I have no demands on my after work time except the ones I put on me. However, I can tell you from experience that there are not enough hours to work, commute, run errands, be mom-wife-girlfriend-lover as is, in a day. Going to the gym meant something else was being put off until another time, or I was in for a very late night. If I just spent half of my day (usually a Saturday, twice a month, when I should have been doing something else), in a salon for four or five hours and spent serious dollars for the privileged to boot, you’re fucking right I’m going to try to maintain that look for as long as possible. Even women with locs/twists have to take time to get to a loctician every couple of months or so for maintenance and I guarantee you, they are not likely to be doing ‘moderate’ exercise, let alone a full-on work out for a few days after that until it sets.

Should our hair not be an issue (read excuse), for exercise? No, it should not be, I fully concede to that, but let’s be real. Even for the regular exercise enthusiasts, the majority of the day is not spent in the gym and we have to deal what we look like when we’re not in it. We may not care what the average stranger on the street thinks, but it’s bullshit to pretend the average woman is not, on even a subconscious level, thinking about how she presents herself. And it’s equally disingenuous to pretend we’re not being measured, if not outright judged on it, down or rather up to our hair, even by the people whose opinions we may care about — our own friends, co-workers and families.

To him I say: You are not the one having to take more time out of your schedule because of return trips to the salon (or home maintenance), to get that do back in order for the next day. A month from now when your comments are relatively forgotten and you’re greeting – hugging – standing next to a woman and her hair is smelly as all get out, at that moment, you are not going to be thinking check out Sistagirl taking care of her health. You’re going to be thinking damn her hair’s funky!

We’ve all scrunched-up our noses at the woman who otherwise looked fine, but the hair wasn’t up to par and that was before we were close enough to smell it. In a perfect world every woman would look fab in whatever style that washed and dried in no time, but it’s not a prefect world. These are our realities and belittling it down to pithy sound bites because it’s not your hair apparent reality doesn’t help (our hair or our fat asses for that matter).

My Father

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Family Tree Image from Google

My father is the earth

    dark, deep, rich soil
    soil tilled and turned
    from the sunrise
    to the sunset
    sometimes in sweat
    sometimes in blood
    from the day born from it
    to the day returned to it.

My father is the earth.

My father is the root

    of the mahogany, the ebony, the oak
    drinking heavily of
    the sweet rain of the clouds
    the salt rain of the tears
    drenched deep in the soil
    of my fathers before them

My father is the root.

My father is the trunk

    rough on the outside
    sometimes ripped by nature
    sometimes stripped by man
    but in the story of each ring
    hidden deep inside
    is the smooth beauty
    known only by those
    born of him

My father is the trunk.

My father is the limb

    raised forward in the wind
    raised forward in the rain
    raised forward in the snow
    raised forward to the sun
    because you can’t teach
    fathers to look forward
    by having fathers
    looking back

My father is the limb.

My father is the branch

    the extensions of faith
    the stretch of hope
    the breadth of a promise
    made long ago

My father is the branch.

I am the twig

    the latest incarnation
    of that promise deferred
    planted deep of the earth
    rooted of the past
    trunked on to the present
    out on a limb
    branched to the sun
    and if I seem to live
    off my fathers before me
    it is not to deprive
    my fathers give willing
    knowing I must survive
    for it is their dreams
    that are my dreams
    coursing through my veins

and in that I am the twig

  the branch
  the limb
  the trunk
  the root
  the earth

and in that I am my father.

========
Submitted to

Theme Thursday
Thursday, August 11, 2011 – Tree

Nice Knowing

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Semi-long day at work, I’m getting home two hours later than usual, yesterday evening. For the last third of the train ride I suffered through the shenanigans of a group of five late-teens/early twenties females who were being, well, the near stereotypical archetype of hood rats. The attempt to simply out loud them via my iPod was futile unless I was willing to risk hearing loss on my part, I wasn’t. Between way too much intimate detail of sex acts than what is proper for a subway during rush hour and the volume, I was really hoping the next stop would be the one in which they disembark.I really hoped that for several stops. As Murphy as his blasted Law would have it, I’ll let you guess at which stop they finally exited… Yes, the same stop as mine.

Grouse. Grumble. Grimace. Groan.

As I’m walking down the stairs from the elevated trains, a few steps ahead of them, I feel this odd tingling that stops me in mid step, but is gone just as fast, so that I barely break stride and continue. I can tell they felt it also because whichever one was cackling at the moment went silent and I heard another let out a “Whoa!”. Before I can even begin to fathom what that could have been, a mighty roar of thunder rolls overhead. If it was four seconds between the tingle, the stop in mid-step and the clap of thunder it was a lot of time. The bark of thunder was so loud, fierce and sudden that a couple of young women screamed in surprise. Every now and then my mind surprises even me with how fast it can extrapolate information, process it and come to a conclusion. The girls screamed; I on the other hand was, without an emoticon, laughing out loud.

Note to self: Bursting out in laughter in front of a group of ghetto girls that just screamed because of thunder — bad move.

Girl A: What the fuck are you laughing at?

Me (I turn quickly already knowing the answer): Are you addressing me?

Girl A: Yes, what the fuck you’re laughing at?

Me: May I ask you young ladies a question? Why did you scream just now?  (You know the saccharine was dripping quadruple time, right?)

Girl B: ‘Cause the lightning scar- suprised us. (I give this one points for catching herself before letting it slip that it scared her.)

Me: Was it the lightning? Any of you really see the lightning or was it the sudden thunder?

Girl A: Okay it was the thunder. Big fucking deal, ain’t sayin’ nuttin’ on whatchu think be funny.  (I know the expression on my face slipped for one second at the butchery of our native language; I know it did.Luckily, they either didn’t notice or more likely had no clue that was the reason.)

Me: Okay, you are all younger than I so I am going to presume you remember more of basic science than I. What comes first, thunder or lightning?

Girl C: Duh, lightning! Light travels faster than sound, so most of the time you see lightening before you hear the thunder unless it’s like right on top of you. Then it looks and sounds like one. (Plus points for the NYC edumacation system – yay! Minus for the tone of voice that was obviously proud of knowing something most primary schoolers learn by first-grade and thus missing the entire point of my snark).

Girl A: And the lightning hadda be like right ova our heads to be all loud like dat. We gots all dis metal ’round us we coulda like died and shit. That ain’t funny.

Girl D (obviously not wanting to be left out of the conversation: That’s why it made me yell.

Me: So those of you that “yelled” did so because you thought you could have died? Right?

Girl A: Yeah and?

Me: If you hear thunder and you have enough time to scream about it, however close it was, and I agree this had to be right on top of us because we all felt a piece of it, that means we survived it. (I literally see the epiphany dawn in Girl C as I speak.)

Me: You screamed because you were thinking “Shit! I could have died!”. I laughed because I was thinking “Shit! I survived!” See the difference? (Girl C and the up to now silent Girl E nod.)

Girl E: See (Girl A’s actual name)? Lookit you all ’bout to start some shit and the lady ain’t even thinkin’ ’bout ‘choo! She just happy she ain’t dead. Now let’s go ‘fore it start coming down.

Me (turning to go): Goodnight ladies, stay dry!

Two of them, I think Girls C and E respond. I hear one say (Girl E?, presumably to Girl A) “Don’ hate, ’cause you know you wrong”.

Weather wise, while other places were pelted with hail, we didn’t get a drop of rain in our area last night. The entire storm for us existed of that one hell of a bolt of lightning that we felt but didn’t see and the ensuing thunder. I personally think the entire exchange was a message from the universe to the two of us (Girl A and I). Girl A and I felt the exact same tinges of current and heard the same loud thunder, yet we had two very different reactions to it.

Of the two mindsets, I have to say – it’s nice knowing where my head space is at these days and I like it !

It Will Never Be Funny

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“Nazi’ing”?!  Nazi’ing? Are you fucking shitting me?!

I saw the above on a friend’s Facebook page and had to comment.

You want to ask yourself if they have no idea of what they do. For a split-second, you’re praying they really were just that ignorant as to what they do. But the fact they created a tumblr blog page for this is indicative of their blatant complicity in it. There is no reconciliation of how culpable the Bang Bang Blog and TUKS FM radio station were for this. The non-chalant way in which this was displayed was appalling to say the least.

“Planking” and “Owling”, be they ever so marvelous examples of how inane some of us humans can be, there is relatively no harm to any one other than the individuals engaged in the stupid acts. These acts of nazi’ing insulted millions of people in one fell swoop. Millions. We have come so far in humanity and then shit like this rears its ugly head to remind us of just how far it is we have to go. We will never be far enough removed from such atrocities of humanity as the Holocaust that this will ever be in the most remote way possible humorous. The term Nazi became something foul as a noun due to the acts of many who wore that title proudly, it should never be a verb.

The good news is apparently enough people were as outraged as I about this. I did a Google search and the above page is gone. It is replaced by rexing (I’m guessing doing something that impersonates a T-Rex by the photo). Rexing is something as equally stupid looking and relatively harmless, as planking and owling, but not as reprehensible as the above.  There is some hope for us, after all, but the shame of it is that this ever existed as a source of humor (however briefly), in the first place.

For Amy

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The first time I heard Amy Winehouse’s voice was on the Soundtrack of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, with her mellow, but nonetheless beautiful cover of Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.


I loved her then, strictly on the merits of her talent. It was a good year before I learned about Winehouse’s first LP Frank, cementing my love of her voice even more.  Then came Back to Black. I had You Know I’m No Good on my personal replay the way every one is now currently loving/bitching on Adele’s Rolling in the Deep. Amy was somewhere in a world only Janis, Billie and Ella could touch previously and people had taken notice. Amy could have taken that talent anywhere. Regrettably, as it seems with so many of the really great ones, she had her demons and they took her first.

Learning of her death Saturday gave me pause. I have learned, for the most part, not to read the comments section on most online editorials. Somehow, the shock of it made me temporarily forget and I was quickly reminded why I avoid such. The public never fails to disappoint in how vicious it can be at such a time. For every heartfelt RIP there were numerous “well no surprise there” type comments. And I have no words that would fully encompass the anger felt for the anonymous douche(s) that chose such a time to lay blame to Amy’s parents for not doing enough and to riff on “Rehab“.

Was the way she died a surprise? No. Was still a tragic shame? Yes.

I read various online articles. I was a little dumbstruck by it at first. I was waiting…for the retraction…waiting to read that it was a mistake, a hoax.  I really expected to someday relatively soon to read, hear that she was getting better.  That she was in the studio recording. That her new single/CD would be out. I was waiting…

From my Facebook, after I read the news, on Saturday:

Oh Amy, I was really pulling for you to prove all the naysayers wrong and come back swinging. May you now rest in peace in the afterlife that you were not able to find in the too short 27 years of your life here on earth.

I really was waiting for her to take that one cleansing breath. You know the one, when you know you’ve hit rock bottom, it can’t possibly get any worse, so you just breathe. In that breath comes a clarity that gets you to do nothing more than take another breath, but that first breath is the cleansing breath of hope that says you can do this/get through this as long as you’re breathing.

Alas, days later, I sit here with my iPod, breathing through various Winehouse singles, duets etc shaking my head at the loss of the woman, the talent, the potential that could have been Amy, who I will still love tomorrow and I can’t help but think…

Just one more breath Amy, it might have been the one …

After-cation

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I just returned from an eight day vacation in Las Vegas and saying it was AWE-SOME really just doesn’t cut it. However, it is now official. Two days back at work and I am in the midst of a serious post-vacation funk. And let me tell you, the rumored funk is so very real and is near inevitable in the life of any vacationer.

All the fun I spent months planning for, saving for and laid awake with great night-before-Christmas anticipation for is… over. The photographic proof of my good time is now on my Facebook and the laundry is out of the suitcase, in the hamper, waiting to be done.

Mind you, this funk does not occur overnight. It is something that seeped into my conscience slowly and before I knew it I was completely mired in it. Yet it feels that all of a sudden I am knee-deep in the reality that I are not: A. Independently wealthy, or B. Free from that most horrid obscenity called Work… with a capital “W.”

When I first arrived home, a tired traveler comfortably surrounded by the familiar sights, scents and sounds of my belongings, I couldn’t help but experience that warm There’s No Place Like Home feeling of sleeping in my own bed. Oh, the bliss!.

Then next yesterday comes, I’m back at work and it is a flurry of activity. I am answering emails, returning calls with a well-rested glow that only a true getaway vacation and not a stay-cation can provide. I’m still in the chillaxin’ zone that comes from spending eight days swimming, partying and just being in Vegas baby. By the third recounting of the details of my grand fun I am progressively losing my voice through the chain-smoking hooker stage straight through to Macy Gray with laryngitis. By 9:15 am I have concocted the following sign:

Granted, work expects that I will be “at the top of your game” since I’m so well-rested, when in reality my head is still in the pool (or on the Vegas Strip, or at any of the various parties), minor gaffs are hopefully forgiven. Hey, it took a solid minute and a half to remember my log on password and you want a briefing on what?

Day two brings with it the mofo that is Reality (with a capital “R.”). The alarm sounds for the second time since I’ve been back and I remember that this was why I went on vacation in the first place – to escape that frackin’ alarm and the daily grind that follows it.

Day two is the same as the day one, only worse. The alarm clock goes off like a Star Trek red-alert reminding me that yesterday was not a fluke or a bad joke. I. AM. HOME. And it is only Thursday. I’ve already begun the self-flagellation of: “Where Was I Exactly One Week Ago?” Let me tell you, it is no where near as enjoyable in retrospect as “Where Will I Be In One Week” was a fortnight ago in anticipation.

Sigh…

I’m beginning to entertain flights of fancy about how I might achieve the life of a full-time vacationer. What if I just disappeared? Is it too late to get a degree in Recreation or Hospitality and Tourism Management? How much DO they pay those people who change sheets and fold towels into the awesome animal shapes, anyway? In the interim – I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.

They say that there are five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and finally Acceptance. They are not necessarily experienced in order. The bereaved might vacillate between the five for several weeks or months languishing for a time at one stage or another. So far I think I have experienced all of them and it has yet to be three days.

I know by Monday I will be resigned to my fate and will have quietly accepted my life just the way it is, but I do not like it. I can’t seem to stop playing the “Where Were You Exactly One Week Ago Today?” game. Every time I look at the CSI:The Experience highlighters I purchased and brought to work to remind me what a great time I had there – I want to cry.

Is it wrong that I have not been back a solid three days and I am already plotting my next escape?

Too Many…

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Pass me the green ones hon, would you please?
Not the celery, much too light.
Not that moss, much too tight.
Not the mint, it won’t match with what I’m wearing.
Not the Jade either, it’s much too daring.
No, the pine, the hunter nor the apple will do.
Geesh! Not the Khaki! What’s wrong with you?!
Oh, I’m so not wearing the alpine,
I’ll not have folks think I’ve lost my mind!
No! Not the forest, not the teal, not the pea.
Just what are you trying to do to me?
The GREEN one! No, the green one right there!
I’m beginning to think, you just don’t care…
What’s the difference?! That’s lime not chartreuse!
What do you mean I have too many shoes?

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No, I do not have any shoes in the above colors (yet). 😀

One Stop Poetry Perfect Poet Award Week 48dVerse ~ Poets Pub | It’s Not Easy Being Green and Also Poetic. (Or, Is It?)

Each Day Anew…

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I wake and start each day anew
I shake myself to clear my head
I take on faith I’ll muddle through
I make myself get out of bed

The day is as it was before
The play of life’s dramas unfold
The clay of my face gets new scores
The way it will for days untold

Time flaunts with me in its cruel way
Time wants me to think I’m all right
Time daunts my tears in light of day
Time haunts me then in dark of night

Can’t lie my pain will soon be through
Can’t fly away until it’s gone
Can’t buy back moments to redo
Can’t die so no choice but go on

It’s true that heartache ends, but when?
It’s few the days I feel it cease
It’s due I know, but until then
It’s through my pen I find release

I know I have the strength to cope
I go as heart and soul say to
I sow my seeds of faith and hope
I grow and start each day anew

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[written several very short, yet long years ago – about six weeks after becoming a widow.]

The form used is called a Lento. Strictly speaking a Lento is two quatrains of eight syllables (a Double Lento has four quatrains, or as I have done, a Triple Lento with six quatrains). A Lento requires that you rhyme the very first word of each line in the stanza and have an ending rhyme of abcd. As you can see I took a little creative licensing here by repeating the first word and rhyming the second words instead and having an end rhyme of abab.

dVerse Poets Pub | Poetics: The Beautiful Sadness

Random Acts — But Why?

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Several friends have asked why would I of all people would reach out to a total stranger as i did yesterday. I was the perfect person to reach to him.  Even I did not understand why until this morning when I read the following…

“Sometimes you really feel alone with your pain, like no one’s there to comfort you in just the way or ways you need.”
— Allyson (part of her comment on yesterday’s Random Acts post)

Dear Lord, how many of us have felt like this over our lifetimes?!

It took Allyson’s comment to bring back a memory…

The week I went back to work after my husband passed away, I was that man on the subway. No sound, no heaving shoulders, just tears I could not stop from streaming down my face for a few minutes.  Unlike the guy from yesterday, this was still winter, I had no sunglasses to hide behind. I couldn’t even pretend I was reading a book and something moved me to tears. I was just sitting there crying.

On a crowded New York City subway during rush hour all alone and no one said a word to me.

I accidentally caught the eye of a woman sitting across from me. She realized I saw her and she immediately looked away. Not just averted hers eyes, but turned her entire face to look elsewhere. I could not decide if she was embarrassed at having been caught looking at me or if she hoped she didn’t add to my embarrassment by being witness to it.

As I stated above, the whole thing was only for a few minutes. Three or four train stops at the most before I was as back under control as I could be given the situation. By the time I made it home, no one who had not seen it first hand was the wiser.  I put the whole thing behind me until now, this being the very first time I have ever spoken about it.

I had put it so far out of my mind, that even yesterday, it did not register as I responded to another crying soul on the subway; at least not consciously.  But obviously the soul remembers, even what the mind does not. I would like to think I still would have responded thusly to the guy yesterday regardless of the coincidence of our situations.

I responded to another that the Powers-That-Be arranged it so that I would be the one standing in front of him. Who knew they kick-started this moment years ago? Ah, karma, sometimes it’s not always a bitch.

Random Acts

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“Time can bring you down
Time can bend your knees
Time can break your heart
Have you begging please
Begging please”
Eric Capton – Tears in Heaven

I’m on the train, going to work this morning.  It’s one of those rare days I’m standing because I gave up my single seat to a woman with a leg cast. To give the woman leg room (*ba-da-dum cymbal crash*), I moved to stand in front of some guy that was seated on the other side of the door from where I was. He’s an attractive Latino, goateed, around my age.  He had that physique of a male who used to be muscular but has gone soft over the years; fat over a solid core. He didn’t look thuggish, but definitely not someone you want to step up on.  Yeah, I was checking him out for a moment  – shoot me- I can only pretend to not see what’s dead in front of me, but for so long before my eyes get tired of staring hard left or right.  I was listening to my iPod (metal mode in full blast), and had pretty much dismissed him mentally.

Fully engaged in the I see you, but I really don’t non-dance that we subways riders not reading or sleeping do, it took a couple of stops before I happened to look down and realized his face was slightly shining.  Holy shit, I think he’s crying! He must have heard my thoughts as that was the exact moment he raised his head removing all doubt before lowering it more trying to hide that very fact. I looked to the woman sitting next to him, but I had already established that they did not know each other. What got me was in the microscopic amount of room allowable, she seemed to be trying to put as much space as possible between the guy and herself without negatively infringing upon the space of the woman on the other side of her.  I did not understand that withdrawal. It was obvious he would have preferred to be anywhere but there at that moment.  This was not the type of man who wanted to be caught on the verge of a breakdown while trapped around strangers on a NYC subway.  I didn’t even think about it, I simply reacted.  I got down on one knee reached out for his hands and held.   Obviously, he tried to pull his hands away, but I wouldn’t let go.

“Whatever it is, it will be okay…” I said quietly.  I have no idea what expression my face held, but when he looked at me, he stopped trying to pull away.  In fact, he gripped tighter as he tried to regain control of his emotions. “No, you need to let go now”.

When I kneeled, I accidentally pushed into a woman’s space behind me. Before I could say anything, I heard her mumble a nasty comment and push back, holding her ground as it were, but I ignored her.  I’m guessing she turned around at that point, accessed the situation and thought about it because I felt space open up around me.  He looked at me, opened his mouth to speak, but only a barely audible sob came out.

“Just let go…” I said a little more forcefully to him, and he did.  It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t manly, it was just raw and my hands took the brunt of the punishment as this man did everything short of bawl in his pain.

I don’t remember what train stop we were between when I initially reached out to him. I know I was there for a several stops, making people navigate around me as we were right by the door. The woman who initially attempted to distance herself now touched me on the shoulder and offered her seat.  Not letting go of his hands, she helped put my purse in my lap as I sat. I had presumed she was exiting at the next station, but she stood in front of us for a couple of stops before disembarking.  Other than to nod my thanks to her, I did not take my eyes from him as he cried. Someone else silently slipped a pack of tissues in my lap, because they just appeared, as I saw no one put them there, so thank you whoever you were.

Eventually, his shoulders stopped their subtle trembling and he reached for the tissues with one hand, still gripping mine with the other. It was another couple of stops before he was in enough control to pull out a pair of sunglasses and cover his eyes.

“Thank you” His voice was understandably raspy.
“You’re welcome.” I nodded finally withdrawing my hand, flexing my fingers.
“Did you miss you stop?” He sheepishly half-smiled at my finger flexing.
I looked up, realized where we were and grimaced, “Oh hellz yeah”.
“Then why?”
“Because you needed me.” I shrugged, it really was the only answer I had.

We both exited the train at the next station.  As I went for the stairs, I felt him grab my hand and squeeze lightly.“Don’t you even want to know why?” he asked when I turned.
“No.” I shook my head honestly. “That wasn’t needed to help. Like I said, “Whatever it is, it will be okay””
He gave his thanks again and let go.

I looked for him once I was on the other side and saw him sitting on a bench further down the platform. His posture now better suited to the image I initially had when I first stood in front of him.  With his sunglasses on covering the pain in his eyes, he was just another guy on the subway again.  My train pulled into the station and I boarded, finally on my way to work.

He didn’t need me anymore, I was free to go.

“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers”
Tennessee Williams – A Streetcar Named Desire