Went to a local library's book sale last Saturday.
It was a shiny fall day. Lots of families out and about. Blue skies. Falling leaves - cliche sorts of things like that. My yearning for a good mood was jockeying for position against the sense of self-pitying heartbreak that still rears its senseless ugly head every now and then.
Could've looked through those piles of books all day. Although it did cross my mind that if I ever manage to write a book and get it published, it may just end up on a $1.50 table.
No matter, Rick Bragg's All Over but the Shoutin' was on a $1.50 table, and that's a priceless story. I snatched up that copy - the 3rd I've bought. The last copy I bought for and left with The Ex. It made him cry. He never finished reading it. Think the stories of alcoholism and wild men who couldn't pony up to being a man to a woman, or a father to a son, hit too close to home for him.
At the sale, the volunteers, robust grandmothers with aprons, were only accepting checks or cash. One lady asked if she could use a deposit slip, as she was out of checks. That made my heart happy, remembering my own mother using a deposit slip at the local grocery more than a handful of times when I was a kid.
Upon my turn to pay, I loaded 12 books into a plastic bag and paid $17 for them.
As I was getting change for the $20 I'd given, the next cashier over said,
"Is that a chemo cut?" to the patron across the counter. The short-haired woman paused and said, "why yes, yes it is."
Without a pause and knocking books askew, the cashier, who upon further inspection, had rather short hair herself, leaned across the table and grabbed the short-haired patron in a strong, passionate embrace.
The room stopped.
I glanced at the husband who stood softly, close to his wife, hands clasped across his front.
The cashier asked into the short-haired book buyer's ear, "what kind?"
I heard the woman say "breast." as
Remembering my manners and not to stare, I took my books and went back out into the day that was no longer a cliche, but instead a wide-open reality that was full of hope, promise, and offered every reason in the world to champion a good mood.
