I spent the weekend in the Garden State, first going to a wedding in Cherry Hill and then to visit J's friends in Princeton. My train came in at 10 last night and it was pouring; I thought I'd treat myself and take a cab, but when I went around to the front of the station, there was this Lord-of-the-Flies-style scenario unfolding. People -- about 300 wet, snarling, insane people -- were jostling for the cabs like their lives depended on it.
Didn't take long for the Metro to look very inviting, but at the end of my cheap and soothing little interval underground, I had to walk home in the downpour with my suitcase, which sadly did not contain an umbrella no matter how much I tried to will one to appear.
I chose a route home that would deliberately be up one of the more residential streets with a lot of trees to protect me from the rain (note to future self: that totally doesn't work). There was this man standing in one of the really pretty, careful gardens outside some of the row houses on the street. He was standing next to a gigantic rosebush taller than he was, with these lush bright pink blooms, and very carefully squeezing the water from the blossoms into a big plastic cup. He did it so gently and gingerly. It took my breath away.
I don't know why he was doing it, if it was because he wanted to use the rosewater somehow or if it's bad for rain to pool in the blossoms, but it made me think of this song, and of the ways people can be gentle with things and each other without knowing anyone else is paying attention.
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