words

I trot down the hill to get an espresso before my afternoon class. Perhaps trot is the wrong word. This young woman trots.





By comparison, I saunter at a slow pace.

On the way back up the hill, I am even slower. Smelling the roses, so to speak. And I hear this conversation behind me. Two young men, discussing a love interest of one of them. She is, you know, just a very nice person. Really nice. The kind that you meet and say – I have dibs on her. And then they move on to a retelling of an incident in class where a professor asked for some ungodly amount of work from the lot of them.

I think to myself that I have never heard a relational matter summarized so quickly and, I suppose, so succinctly.


I'm remembering a conversation with my occasional traveling pal. He'd been telling me about an exchange he had had with a friend, concerning travels with, well, his traveling companion. After a few brief sentences, he paused. That’s it? That’s all you said? – I asked. What else more is there to say? – he countered, genuinely puzzled.


In the evening, I walk up to the Capitol Square, where I play with my camera and windowpane  reflections and all the usual nonsense that seems so fun when you’re doing it but utterly silly in retrospect.




Isn't that so often the case with reflections...


The day ends well. I feast in ways that I rarely feast these days.





And as I am with friends whom I see too rarely, I give a summary of my most recent thoughts on travel and traveling buddies, and I do this sparingly and succinctly (I think). I can almost hear someone asking – that’s it? Is that all you can say about it? And I have to admit that the answer would be yes.

Sometimes, you don’t have to say a lot. Sometimes, you need say very little and still it is brilliantly clear what it is that you’ve just said. Sometimes.