She was most delightful.

In a city, you never know who you're going to meet next. Going to the grocery store or walking down the block can run you into some of the most interesting and delightful people you may ever cross paths with.

The other day I was on the train ride home from work, and this lady sat down next to me. She was wearing splendid dark furs from head to toe, and beautiful diamond earrings. She murmured something to me about the train stopping further at the platform than it usually did, and so she had to get on a different car than she was used to. I said ah yes, the train is unpredictable. Then she fumbled in her purse to get her train ticket out, and brought out a pair of binoculars. She said they were lovely but never stayed closed and told me a little story about how she had seen her friend using them and commented how nice that was to have binoculars, and the friend gave them to her on the spot because her eyes were failing and couldn't use them anyway. I asked if she was going to a show tonight, and she said yes, not a show, but an opera- Midsummer Night's Dream to be exact.

Excellent, I said. I told her I was holding out for Carmen tickets. She proceeded to tell me that she had a favorite seat in the opera house, on the 6th balcony right in the middle. She said it was the 'sweet spot' of the house and the acoustics were so fantastic, that once she was asked to sit somewhere else. So, she sat a balcony lower and kept looking up at who might be in her seat. She said in the second act of the opera, a soloist stood up from her usual seat and proceeded to sing the solo from her chair. That's how you know how great the acoustics were from that chair!

Then she told me one more story before she turned to her book, and I to my magazine. She said she used to play flute, and was quite dismayed when, during one performance, the flautist was quite out of tune- not able to adjust with the changing warmth of the opera house. So she stood up in her seat, in the 6th balcony and said, "Tune your flute!" And she said the flautist immediately fixed it. So, she said to me, wish mischievous brown eyes, I know they can hear me.

Simply delightful. Like most things and people and places I fall immediately in love with, I wanted to pick her up and tuck her in my pocket for safekeeping. My pockets are full of things like encounters, people, and sun dappled grass. I either imagine shrinking them down to fit into my pocket, or my pockets expanding to hold everything that brings me joy. That sounds a bit Catcher in the Rye of me, doesn't it?