Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Conversations with Strangers

 

"I can't help it.

It's in my genes. I strike up conversations with strangers, just like my mother and father did. As a child I listen to them chattering away and after we left the person they were talking to, I would ask who that person was and/or how did they know them. More often then not, they would admit they didn't know them at all.

Today I went into the ladies room at Manora, a grocery store. A woman was washing her hands and she was wearing an ankle-length coat with various shade of brown stripes.  It had a fur collar and reminded of something I might see in the Dr. Zhivago movie.

"Excusez-moi mais votre manteau est beau, magnifique,"

She turned and with a smile said, "Merci."

She said that she'd had the coat for 40 years. The coat was so original, that the most I could hope for was to capture the feeling of the moment of the two of us talking. To ask to take her photo would have spoiled the mood.

We talked about how we kept some clothes for years: they were like old friends with shared memories.

She had been in Switzerland for 40 years and had escaped Czechoslovakia when it was still Communist. I told her about my wonderful Czech neighbors in Geneva who later showed me Prague through their eyes saying similar things about living through those bad years and the freedom of their current lives.

We talked about French accents -- she thought mine was adorable, but I didn't say I thought mine sucked, just I wished it were better.

She was three years younger than I am. She mentioned my almost unwrinkled skin, another tribute to my genes. Her skin was that of someone younger but there was no way would she ever have any surgical or injection, she told me. We agreed that what wrinkles we do have, we earned. They represent memories. 

Her figure was something that any woman would love to have. She exercises regularly to keep her figure, but also to keep healthy. 

The conversation ended as we went to join our husbands.

I owe a debt of gratitude to both my parents. Because of them, I'm not afraid to tell a stranger that she has a beautiful coat which will meld into a moment of sharing, discovery and insight into another person's humanity.

 



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