Avoid Thy Neighbor?

This could have been me the other day, sitting alone in a McDonalds (hardly with table cloth!). The car was in the shop and I was across the street spending quiet time by reading and writing with nobody else there. I soon heard a woman over my shoulder speaking to the woman at the counter.  Something about being lost and where was the closet metro station.  I ignored her and her situation.  That is, until she came into my booth for the outlet to charge her phone--I was sitting in the only booth with an outlet!  Oh of course she apologized for crashing in, but her cell was dead and she had to get a connection somehow.

The woman was African American--hair shot back, large ear-rings--with such dominant eyes, black specks floating in pools of white that danced with the fervor with which she spoke.  She was lost, way lost alright.  She had been out on MLK Day and forgot the transit was on a holiday schedule.  "Don't worry," I said, "My car will be ready from that shop over there and I will get you to the metro." There is no way she could walk over those miles, and don't ask me how she got as far as she did!

Needless to say, waiting on the car was a "trip" in itself--hearing her story and how she came to DC from CA.  She was a teacher but her love was poetry.  Oh no--how is it that perfect strangers with these mutual interests bond so quickly?  Poets just know each other--even poor poets!

Short of the long story.  My car took another hour, so I packed her away in a cab and got the fare. She called me her friend just for being there for her.  "Hey lady...I was doing everything I could to avoid you...and you found me, or rather...God put us together so you could get home and I could taste the vitality of your soul.  A God-incident....