Grey day. Even the squirrel, lounging out on the end of the Oak branch, looks glum.
Yet the mind wanders quickly to pierce this grey ceiling and surfaces in a cantina South of the Rio Grande. Far south. South of all the melancholy and wishful thinking, the plans, the new ideas, the failed attempts.
In the evening, just off the dusty road and day’s heat, under the cabana, you will find old happy men. Not happy as in jubilant or gay, but rather happy as in content with the world about them. Men with limited expectations and the comfort of the next breathe in a life they can reliably predict.
Easing the belly up and into their space, he makes the obligatory gesture which simply acknowledges no threat. A nod of the head constitutes opening statements. Oh, but he knows they are quietly curious. After a full beers time of adjustment to the pinprick to the cultural bubble, he initiates the exchange with a question, in his foolish but respectful attempt at their language. As pathetic as he sounds to these native Indians, he always does so with a smile in his eyes and a warm heart in his thoughts.
They laugh and smile and begin to engage him. These older men exhibit a childlike playfulness that is contagious. Sometimes they sing funny songs, other times they cry. It always seems to evolve into an indescribable exchange of human emotion.
He lies in his blanket on the next morning reliving the experience just hours before like a highschooler the day after attending his first wild party.
What a day ahead….nothing grey about it.
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