As I sat at my park bench the other day, I watched a young couple walking by. They stopped to admire the golden leaves on a maple tree about ten yards in front of me. The woman leaned in and said something to her fellow. She must have asked him to get a leaf from the tree since he began to attempt to do just that. Now, the tree wasn’t terribly tall and the branches weren’t all that high, but still they were outside this guy’s reach. He tried the full body stretch. When that didn’t work, he switched to jumping. When that failed it was back to the stretch. Who knows? Maybe he grew since the last try.
I tried not to watch, but they were directly in front of me. At some point, I think he became aware of me sitting there – I detected some quick glances. I would estimate that I’m easily six inches taller than this guy. I could have my pick of any of the leaves from the lower couple of branches on the tree. I suppose I could have gone over and gotten one for him, but I don’t think he would have appreciated it. If anything, I think he was maybe worried I might do just that.
The frustrating thing was that there was another tree behind him with equally lovely leaves well within his reach. I found myself trying to catch his eye and then turning my gaze to the other tree. Eventually, he noticed the other tree. He wandered over and leisurely selected the finest specimen for his girl. As he pulled the leaf from the branch he shot me one last look. Did I detect some hostility? I think so.
As they walked away, I wondered if I’d imagined it or if this guy was actually upset with me. We had not exchanged any words, only a few brief glances. I suppose I could have done a better job of looking the other way – I’ll try to remember that in the future. When I got up, I fought the urge to pick any leaves from the big people tree.
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