Like a lot of people, I don’t answer my phone if I don’t recognize the phone number.
I cannot, therefore, explain what compelled me to answer mine when it rang today; I glanced at the screen, saw that it wasn’t someone in my contacts, and answered it anyway.
It was a woman, whose name meant nothing. She said we’d met in 2019, at one of my street fairs. That she was a massage therapist. I apologized for not recognizing her name (I’m terrible with names). I was scraping my memory to find her face.
And then she said we’d done a trade —- and that did it. I can picture her, and remember her coming into my booth and the ensuing conversation. Her therapy office was near the street fair, and we agreed to a massage in exchange for an equal value of my soaps. The massage was great, and she clearly enjoyed the soaps since she kept my card. Her location, however, made it nearly impossible for me to do future massages and then the world fell apart anyway.
We had a lovely chat, and I was happy to hear that her business survived the pandemic; she was glad that I also weathered the storm and was still making soap. She said she’d been forced to move her office to save rent money, but her new spot is less than 5 miles from my house, in a location I know well.
She wondered if I’d be interested in another trade, and I’d like to say I hesitated even a microsecond, but I couldn’t say yes fast enough. Massage is one of the things I’ve missed from this whole pandemic, and my schedule makes it challenging to find a place that is open when I am available. With her close to my house and open on Saturday, most of my excuse is taken away.
Self-care, baby! Perhaps I’ll answer my phone more often.
The Erratic Ramblings of an Extraordinarily Ordinary Person 