150 Steps...In the Present Moment

She is in line in front of me at the Dunkin Donuts. It isn't that she has a bad odor drawing my attention to her because she doesn't have one, which is surprising. It is her oddness. The way she holds her arms away from her sides, hands dangling, and sways ever so slightly. It's the short brown obviously unwashed hair standing straight up in the back with large flakes of dandruff embedded in it. It's the droopy, dirty, strapless sundress and the dirty white flip flops that make me look at her more closely. Her tan feet are filthy with long, sharp looking toenails that have not seen a clipper in many, many months. I notice that her long, sharp looking finger nails are dirty as well. When her arms are not held away from her sides she plucks and plucks at the skirt of her dress. I'm guessing that she is somewhere in her early fifties, although it's hard to tell. Her face, except for her rapidly blinking eyes, is slack and immobile. The young girl behind the c

I'm sitting in my favorite coffee house today trying to get some writing done when she walks in with her friend. She can't be more than 15 or 16 years old. Laughing and giggling. Very pretty with long dark hair, dark eyes and tanned skin. She is wearing one of this season's popular floor length "maxi" dresses. And she is also very obviously very pregnant. She and her friend purchase their coffee and treats and sit at the next table over from me chatting happily away. I know that I am staring at them, which is terribly rude, but I cannot tear my eyes away from them so distracted and distressed am I by the sight of this pregnant girl. Distressed and distracted not by  her  or her pregnancy, but rather by  my reaction to her and her pregnancy . "How can you possibly take care of a baby at your age?" I ask her in my thoughts. "You're just a child yourself!" I wonder whether she's planning to keep her baby, if her family is going