September 3, 2009 @ 6:49 am | Filed under: Family,Uniquely Me,he said she said

“The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.” - Frederick Beuchner
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(journal entry from mid-May)

Tonight was a quiet evening. We sat in our (now) small living area – Mike in his chair, with his computer (doing sales call reports) and me in my spot on the sofa, with my computer (doing homework.) It was just a few minutes before nine when there was a knock on the door.

I think it startled us both. In the couple of weeks we’ve been here, we’ve not seen many people, let alone knocking on our door.

Mike set his computer aside and went to the door. Even though he was less than twenty feet away, I could neither see nor hear our visitor. I could only hear Mike’s side of the conversation.

“No, thanks, we don’t really need any this time.” He closed the door and locked it. “That was a local high school girl selling cookie dough for—”

He stopped mid-sentence and I can only guess it was because I had sprung up from my seat and was at his side when he turned around.

I opened my mouth and tried to find a voice for the overwhelming pull that had propelled me upward in the first place. I spit and sputtered, uttering words that seemed to come from out of nowhere. I’m pretty sure that ‘community’ and ‘witness’ and ‘part of the plan’ all came out of my mouth in that brief twenty second period, but I don’t know that it made any kind of sense at all.

Mike unlocked the door and stepped out into the breezeway outside our door, looking down the hallway for the girl. She was at the next apartment.

“Hey, I think my wife wants to buy some after all.” Mike beckoned her back.

I spent the next five minutes introducing myself to Kenesha, a striking African-American teen with the most beautiful blue eyes I think I’ve ever seen, and buying the white chocolate-macadamia cookie dough that – truly – we did not need. Even as we chatted, I was almost mesmerized by her personality, and I even had the briefest of seconds when I thought – again - how unlike me this was, to be so involved in an animated conversation with a complete stranger.

But there was an unspeakable pull toward this teen that began while I still sat on the sofa, before I’d even laid eyes on her, or heard her voice.

After I handed her the fourteen dollars for the cookie dough and then shut and locked the door, Mike chuckled from his chair. “Think we’ll ever see that cookie dough?”

I was silent, still kind of in awe at what had pulled me from my spot on the sofa in the first place. Somehow I knew it wasn’t really about the cookie dough at all. We sat in total silence for about five minutes. And then Mike spoke.

“Do you ever get the feeling that we’re here for more than just the reasons we think we’re here?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Tags: life lessons, living simply