Further Signs of Aging

This week I attended the 50th birthday party of a well-known, hard-working advocate for many causes including the environment, social justice and women's rights.

You can imagine that there were quite a lot of other people there with me.

And I knew a lot of these folks from my previous life in the non-government sector and work as an environmental lawyer. Some of them, it has been so long, while I knew their faces, I had no access whatsoever to a name or what had been the circumstances of our acquaintance.

So I smiled at everyone, chatted up the ones whose names I did recall and remarked secretly to myself about how old everyone looked.

****************************************************************

A young woman stopped me on Bay Street on Tuesday morning as I was on my way to work. She looked to be in her late teens early twenties and wore a large back pack. As she tentatively began her request, my brain restlessly presented possible options of what she might want: directions to the bus station, the time ... maybe loose change. 

She handed me her iphone.

"Would you take my picture?" And then she told me how she wanted the picture taken. She wanted to pose a distance from the camera, with the buildings along Bay Street looming large in the background. 

"I'll look sad," she said, "to show I'm sorry to be leaving."

So I did as directed, and took a few extra shots of her walking away. I told what I'd done as I handed her back her $400 cell phone. She said thanks.

******************************************************

A friend recently on vacation saw the scene in the photo below and thought of me right away.

Thanks for reading! Have a great week!

Karen