Saturday.
I’m writing an email to one of my freelance clients about the work I’ve just finished for them, and I get a knock on my Ambulance door.
It’s Susie! She’s this lovely woman who I first met last year when she’d take her morning walks through my neighborhood.
The last time I saw her in passing she mentioned, “maybe I’ll stop round and have a chat with you before I leave town.”
“I’d really love that,” I said.
When we first met she’d just say “hello,” and keep going. Then one day she walked back to say, “can I ask you a question?” and each time after she’d have another thing to ask about how I was living.
I wasn’t too sure about her motives, maybe she was someone in the neighborhood who wasn’t too happy that there are full-time vanlifers parking around here.
But this one day she asked me if I work and when I told her I’m a website developer her face lit up with enthusiasm, “good for you girl!” and off she went.
She disappeared sometime in April and I was disappointed and even worried about if she was okay. I didn’t know anything about her really, so I hoped maybe she was just traveling.
The beginning of this year she reappeared and I’m not even sure how to express how happy it made me to see her. I’ve “adopted” a few older men in the neighborhood as honorary grandfathers, and in a way I felt like maybe Susie was my first honorary grandmother since moving here.
Her visit today was so spontaneous, one of my favorite things about living this way – you never know how a day will turn out and who you will see or meet.
And we had a great conversation.. I found out she lives in Wisconsin and visits California a few months out of the year. What a small world, I grew up in Wisconsin!
I hope to see her again before she leaves town, but grateful she contributed the best day of my life today.
