SPENDING TIME IN MY OWN WORLD

On Tuesday I walked to Trader Joes for a case of wine. It was hot out, and smoke hazy from all the fires. I had Mike's Ipod on - playing Beatles for me alone.

The Ipod filling my head with private music, and my sunglasses hiding my eyes from everyone, and the heat making everything shimmer, and the smoky sky that was white instead of the usual blue ... all of these things put me into a different state of being. I felt I was all alone in a kind of capsule that the world could not penetrate. It was quite beautiful.

I felt my legs striding along, but hardly heard my footsteps over the music being fed into my head through the tiny Ipod earplugs. I passed people, looked them in the eye and smiled a serene smile. But of course they couldn't see my eyes, and they didn't know that my world was full of music while they were obliged to hear just the usual city thing.

Occasionally I passed another person wearing an Ipod and sunglasses. I realized we were each listening to a completely different song. Each sitting inside our own head as we strode through the hazy heat, sailing past each other so close we could touch if we wanted ... but our heads were each in a seperate Ipod/sunglasses universe.

As I crossed the Trader Joe's parking lot, Oblah Dee Oblah Dah started up. I grinned at the perfect timing. Trader Joe's is a very cool natural foods hippie type of store. A very happy place. An Oblah Dee Oblah Dah kind of place.

I took off my sunglasses as I entered, but kept the Ipod playing. The removal of my sunglasses made me feel a little less inside my own head, which was suddenly disconcerting. I looked forward to returning to the outdoors where I could hide behind them again.

I lifted up a case of wine, and discovered (as I'd suspected from the beginning) that I couldn't possibly carry that heavy thing home, especially in the heat. So I wandered the aisles for bananas and other lightweight stuff.

I paid, and left the store. Put on my sunglasses and began the return walk home. At the streetlight, a Mexican man was there, waiting to cross. He pressed the crosswalk button, turned to me and commented on the heat. I could just hear him over the Ipod. I agreed with him, and we crossed together.

At the other side of the street, he walked on ahead, toward a dusty path cut into a steep hill leading up to the highway. I watched him climb it to my own private accompaniment of 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer'. He looked very 'old world' to me.

He reached the top and looked down at me looking up at him as I strode under the overpass, and we smiled at each other.

The End