IT WAS COLD ON CHAMBERS STREET this morning. The wind was
blowing harder downtown than where I live and there were a couple times I had
to laugh to myself when the sign almost flew out of my hands while I was
adjusting the knit cap I wear on cold mornings. I laughed because I must have
looked funny standing there in the wind to the folks crawling by in their warm cars
in the morning crush of traffic.
Some of them beep to let me know they agree
with the sign. Some roll down their windows and give me a thumbs-up or quick
take a picture of the sign with their phones. Now and then someone will ask out
their window what my deal is, but I can’t really make out what they’re saying because
they’re doing big construction work on a building across the street and that drowns
out the exchange. I grin and nod back at them.
One guy walking by me today
said, because it was so cold and windy, ‘That’s dedication!’ That I could hear.
It makes me feel good to hear that. Not because it’s about me, in the normal sense
of me. But because it corroborates this rewarding feeling of being useful which
I’ve had since the message of the sign came to me.
