I Saw Her Again Today...

This morning I walked to work and I saw her again. I haven't written about her here before, but since I saw her again this morning, I'm gonna tell you about her.

When I walk to work, I go out of my apartment block and up my street then turn right onto Oxford Street, the main street that goes right into the city. So when I get to Oxford Street I join an army of walkers, all heading in the same direction.

Most of the walkers are not interesting to me, they are just people who are walking to work, I don't bother giving 'em a second look, but there's a woman I have seen regularly over the last couple years, and God Almighty I am crazy about her. On those too rare days when I turn the corner, and she is there, my heart damn near leaps out of my chest in pure joy. I have found her again!

She's not very tall, she wears normal-looking clothes, no dumb power suit with sneakers, or anything like that, but nice clothes, clean clothes, and she doesn't carry one of those stupid Fitness First backpacks that every other damn walking woman seems to have, and her hair is reddish-brown, not long, not short. But the thing is this: every time I have seen her she is walking along, full steam ahead, reading a book. God, how I love her!

This is what happened this morning and every other morning I have seen her:

I see her and I am filled with a joy so intense it's like the sun exploded. Everybody disappears, only she remains. It doesn't matter that I am heading to work, this woman, walking and reading, she enchants me. My world has been perfected.

Just about every block we have to stop at a corner, now is my chance to covertly try to see what the book is. What is she reading? I have to know. One time it was a Leon Uris book. I'd never read a Leon Uris book before, but now that I saw her reading one, I knew I had to. I still haven't, but I will. It's pretty hard to see the title of the book because she flips it up and down, it's hard to read the bouncing front cover of the book. In a way, it doesn't matter what she's reading. Well, OK, maybe it does matter. It would break my heart to see her reading something like Danielle Steele, who my COLLEAGUE reads and let me tell you I never let an opportunity pass without taking a shot at her about it. But I'm sure she doesn't read Danielle Steele, I'm sure of it.

Today I saw that she was reading a book by somebody called Lesley Pearce. I've never heard of that author but there must be something good about him, or her, and that book, otherwise she wouldn't be reading it so intently. And she walks, reading all the way, only dropping the book very briefly to check the traffic at the corner, then the book flips back up in front of her face. God, how dear she is to me! Does she have somebody who appreciates her? Somebody who shares her passion for books? As I walk near her, I imagine I could be that person. Why not? Surely we are made for each other. Could I feel like this otherwise?

She walks all the way up to Hyde Park, but it's there that we go our separate ways, and it is an ENORMOUSLY depressing moment. She goes off diagonally, through Hyde Park, and I keep walking straight down, where Oxford Street becomes Liverpool Street. I can't help looking over again and again, I see her, I watch her appear and disappear through the trees. With that book up near her face, eternally. She gets smaller and smaller, until at last she disappears, and I can't see her anymore.

I will see her again. If only it could be soon!