tales from an ordinary world

2000-07-27

And then it hit me, standing on the tram going home. I'd noticed they now had timetables above the ticket machine. I was going to get one, but thought "Hey. What for ?". Gone are the days of checking the timetable before I leave the house, and randomly standing around the lounge room waiting for the optimal moment to walk out the door and hurry to the tram stop. These days, I just go when I'm ready. There's no rush. Part of the journey's in the waiting, watching the endless traffic going by, the impatient drivers who won't give an inch to anyone else, the joggers heading up to the park and back, people walking their dogs...I don't usually get all that at home, especially when I've turned everything off in anticipation of leaving. The thing is, I can't remember when it was that all this changed. It wasn't a conscious decision.

So once again I ponder the nature of coincidence - having walked past some random serious and determined-looking woman walking the other way in front of the town hall as I approached the tram stop, I got off the tram this evening and walked home past the town hall, passing the very same serious and determined-looking woman walking the other way. Had she been waiting for me, just so she could do her Serious Walk with her loud shoes tapping the pavement for all to hear ? Maybe she'd been practicing this all day, walking back and forth in front of the town hall. I can't imagine any of this is true, but how did I manage to end up with such symmetry in the day's events ?