Angel in a Blue Sweater

This morning stunk. Well, to be fair, this morning had the greatest potential to stink, but did not. Hence the earlier-than-normal post.

I woke up naturally, without the alarm clock and lounged in bed for almost an hour before I needed to get up. My husband got home from work and got in to bed, signaling to me that I was not (as I believed) getting a ride into work today and that my hour of lounging would prove to be ill-advised. I ran through my routine, resigned myself to the fact that my hair would be a wreck today no matter what I did and hustled out the door.

To fully understand my gratitude today, I should share a quick bit of history. When I was in high school I had a pretty long commute. I would walk about a mile to get my first bus...then one transfer and an hour later I'd be at school. It sounds like more of a hassle than it really was, because most of the trip was spent with friends. The tough part was the walk. I was alone...it was long...the last 1/4 mile was uphill and if you missed the bus, you had the pleasure of watching it zip across your line of sight. It could be a bit demoralizing, to say the least.

Now my walk to the bus is shorter and it is all downhill, but you still run the risk of watching the bus fly by as you're walking down. The stop is also at a busier intersection that has no control for pedestrians crossing, so there's that. As I walked down the street today (in the rain) I saw the 27 zip by. Sigh. As I got closer to the intersection, I saw the 9 coming, but I still had to cross three streets to get to the stop. The first two were easy-peasey, but the third looked hopeless. Traffic was moving well in both directions, so the bus wouldn't be held up, and the lane I had to cross wouldn't give me a chance to sneak through.

Then, I noticed something. The bus was not moving. There wasn't anyone getting on, but it was not moving. Traffic in that direction had come to a standstill. Why? Because my angel in a blue sweater had seen me trying to wrangle my way through traffic and was waiting for me. I've missed enough buses in my day (including ones that I was standing next to, pounding on the side of, begging to be let in) that I assumed that there was some kind of system-wide points system for how many people's spirits could be crushed in a single day. Today, my faith was restored.