Above me, night steadily carpeted the sky. I had left work about an hour before, and now, after a 45 minute train ride, I was at the Junction, awaiting the bus, awaiting the start of the final leg on my journey home.
Standing in a sea of people, I glanced down the street, hoping for a sign of the bus. I stretched my neck, I leaned forward, I leaned backwards, I watched others play out a variation on this theme. Time passed, but still no bus.
A mother and her young daughter wove their way through the crowd. It was the young girl who initially caught and held much of my attention.
Smartly dressed, her accessories included a black winter hat, a white knit chunky infinity scarf, and stylish ankle length brown suede boots. If I had to guess her age, I'd seesaw between Kindergartner or First grader.
Swaying slightly from side to side, clearly engaged in the solitary playful exchange prevalent in most of her generation-- that oftentimes inevitable exchange with an invisible other,-- she made me smile. I watched her wiggle and dance in place, with her left hand in her mother's right, and in her right hand, almost prize like, a cookie still housed in its clear plastic. She cradled that cookie in a manner that told me she would savor it when the first opportunity presented itself.
Daughter's hand firmly in her grasp, her mother's singularly focused attention was on crossing the street against the light.
Watching as they made their way across, mother, keenly vigilant, daughter blissfully unaware but feeling safe and free to dance and play, I thought of my own mother and how, many, many, many years ago, we two, on countless occasions, must have been engaged in the same living tableau.