Time to Stand and Stare

One of the privileges of my WAHM lifestyle is that I get to witness those tiny but often significant episodes as I go about my daily routine.

Let me share a couple of vignettes.

Episode One

Waiting outside the post office this morning, I saw a familiar face headed in my direction.

Rose and her family are long-time friends of ours; our shared history dates from when we were new migrants. Our girls went to the same Council kinder(3 years ago!), so for a whole year we saw each other almost everyday. These days, we hardly meet, as the children go to different schools, have different after-school activities etc. You might say our lives run in parallel, similar direction but rarely intersecting. The last time I ran into Rose (again at the Plaza), we had a lovely long chat that began with mutual cheek-touching and ended with affectionate goodbyes and regards to one another's families. That's the kind of friendship we have.

Today Rose asked what I was doing at the Plaza, and I waved the A4-sized envelope I was carrying.

"I'm enrolling Jordanne for kinder ... Can you believe it? She's not a baby anymore!"

This was followed by several minutes of marvelling over how quickly the kids have grown up.

Episode Two

Several persons ahead of me in the queue was a couple. They looked like they might have been in their late 50s or early 60s. The hubby was tall and burly, with a huge paunch hanging out over his belt. The wife was several heads shorter, slim, serene and beautiful as only a contented midlifer can be.

The wife had a huge smile on her face as she looked around her, and I thought to myself, what a lovely lady.

She leaned back against her hubby, whose belly met her upper back, and he started nudging and bouncing her with his belly the way a father would amuse a toddler. She turned around, laughing up at him and saying something audible only to both of them, and he looked down with affectionate amusement on his face.

In that moment, I thought to myself: How beautiful. I hope CA and I will still be enjoying each other like that when we reach their age.