The cool lake breeze blew playfully through my hair.  I tugged the ponytailer loose and left my hair free to wave into my face if it wanted to.  Waves lapped happily against the shore and made the world seem... [i]right[/i].  As the sun rose over the waters and its first rays warmed my skin, I strolled along the roadside.  Despite the traffic that zoomed by and the jogging suits and bicycles, I felt anonymous, unburdened.  Like tea kettle taken off the flame with whistle fading, pouring its waters to make a fragrant camomile tea—purpose fulfilled.  Pressure released. 

I felt very good.  Very good indeed.

I don't consider myself that special.

My parents brought me from the old country on a Japanese freighter.  I grew up working in an ethnic grocery that also sold imported rice cookers, silk clothing, lacquered boxes, and bright colorful dishes—a business that allowed my parents to send their daughter to university where she dutifully learned how to make life better her family and their five employees.

The only secret I know is that if you help people get what they want, most make sure I get what you want.  It started when Taki the son of our rice cooker supplier was looking for essential oils and I hooked him up with a Kelly who who distilled some for his for soap and candles.  Soon it was, oh, you know that person, do you?  She is connected with a firm that does what?  That village in the old country makes what?

Deliveries that father had to pick up at the warehouse soon came by truck.  Other trucks soon arrived with deliveries to be picked up by others to be freighted via container across an ocean or continent. 

Soon, you had to speak to Rinn.  Rinn knew whom to speak with, who in this city or that need what, people who traded me gossip for project projections, accountings of harvests for news of factory overproductions.

All I've ever done is be friendly, found what people wanted, and shared.

That doesn't make [i]special,[/i] just human[i].  [/i]I help people help people.  Many do the same in return

Keeping track of it all can be exhausting, though.  Sometimes....

Sometimes there's so space for me.

[i]Today[/i] was for me.  

Off the grid.  Non-consequential.   

Thirty-nine hours ago, there'd been an avalanche.  The village wasn't well known, the country neither poor nor wealthy.  I was asked.  You know people: can you find us medical supplies, get food up there?  I found the bags of dried staples and water bottles.  My friends found the medical teams and air transports.  Friends of friends found the customs and transportation officials to make it happen.

All it took was calling and begging and chatting up so that volunteers offloading planes stocked helicopters as I walked by the lake, admiring the sun.

So, now I could have time to myself, right?  Nothing to feel guilty about.  A day to be nobody, sneakers hitting cement, going nowhere fast.  A day that didn't matter.

A woman can't be [i]on[/i] all the time, can she?

That didn't mean that... when the young man in blue sweats with a big wheeled pram with his son in sunglasses jogged by... that I didn't smile.

Or when the blond guy on red bike waved...

Or when the old lady with a black lacquer cane looked up and nodded as we approached, passing cars grabbing at her pink velour clothes and gray hair...

I beamed back.

With bikes zipping by on our right and cars on her left, the old woman's cane stuck in a crack and she tripped.

In a heartbeat, she twisted sideways toward the roadway.

I jumped forward, grabbing her wrist before she did more than gasp or begin to windmill.

It took no more than a tug—though I had to shoot out my other hand to catch her cane.

"Are you all right?"

"Oh, my!  I'm sorry."

I chuckled, heart racing as she pushed locks of hair back behind her ear and accepted her cane.  Bloody images flashed through my mind.  Had I not be here... or reacted!

"Do you need me to call you a car?"

She smiled, but stepped away from the road as bike riders pedaled around us.  "Oh, no.  Thanks.  I'll just watch better where I'm walking!"

I waved.  She waved.

I watched her take a few dozen steps, then continued on my way, shaking my head.

I guess I had my place in the world.