The Woman in a Chair

Yes, I know...a chair theme. That was the unexpected theme of my day.

About an hour ago I was watching Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts in Notting Hill on cable. While I love this movie dearly and always get those tingly, fuzzy feelings in my tummy when I watch it, a new kind of feeling took over me this time around. I hadn't seen this movie for a few years and so when I watched it tonight, I couldn't help but tear up towards the end of the film. See that usually happens when Roberts starts her "I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her" speech to Grant, but, oddly enough, I found myself greatly touched by another couple in the movie- Max and Bella.

Grant's character William's best friend is Max, who has a paraplegic wife named Bella. It isn't the fact that she is paraplegic that moved me, it was the love these two characters shared. After William has turned down Roberts' Anna, even after her romantic overture, his friends make him realise he has made a terrible mistake and rally to go in search of Anna on her last day in London. Max brings his car around and the whole gang squashes inside to go along for the adventure- except for Bella.

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The Man on the Bench

As I was walking to the mechanic's today to pick up my car I saw this elderly man sitting on a park bench by the road. He was an unassuming man, dressed in grey trousers, a white shirt, a beige cardigan and was topped with a tweed flat cap. This elderly man was sitting on this bench by the side of a boring road near my house. All that was in this man's line of vision was a petrol station and a mechanic's shop. But there he was in the middle of the afternoon on this park bench, one arm across his torso supporting the other that was supporting his chin.

I stared at this gentleman for quite some time. I'm pretty sure he knew I was there, but that didn't deter him. In the time I spent looking at him, I couldn't stop thinking about how content and focused he looked. There he was on this park bench, on a road whose most exciting activity consists of people pumping petrol into their cars. Yet, he seemed to derive pleasure from watching these cars pull in, get their fill of petrol and drive off to an unknown destination. The intensity in his expression was so powerful that I couldn't get his image out of my mind all day.

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