This morning I drove to the hospital in order to try to force myself to get work done. It worked. I was productive all day completing several small work assignments that had been hanging and unfinished. Tomorrow, it's a whole day's worth of video calls after I go and test drive a used car vicariously for my daughter.
While I was working in the hospital cafeteria today, I could not help but overhear this impossibly cheerful woman. She's Muslim. Wears a colorful headscarf. Indonesian, I think. Her conversation and her laughter, which never slaked for long, reminded me of several birds singing at once.
My usual impulse would be to think, "Jesus Christ, shut up already!" after ten or fifteen minutes. But it wasn't like that. She gossiped about her greedy neighbor whose poor husband works three jobs to support her. She discussed at length the proper way to prepare sticky rice. Her laughter was a pleasant trill. There was no malice or cruelty in it.
Sometimes you run into someone good and it makes you wonder what's wrong with you.
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