Television, of course, offers everyone the illusion of friends, more so now even than when Friends was in its heyday. That not being enough for some, Twitter now extends the illusion to actual followers. And while surely I’m not the first to have observed this, it doesn’t matter, because blogging has given me the illusion of readers. A temporary self-deceit, at best.
As my home page here attests, I still believe, however, that somebody is watching. And apparently Somebody sometimes sees when we might need a little encouragement in life. In my case, at least, and I hope everyone’s.
Such encouragement once came to me in the form of a dimpled high-school boy with thick brown hair. We’d gone to school together forever, and I still have some of our class pictures, documenting the abundant mane, the depths of those dimples.
By high school the dimpled boy was nowhere on my radar. I must have passed him in the hall a thousand times, and I’d like to think I at least nodded, but I really don’t remember.
Then, one day, as classes were changing, he stepped out of the crowd and stopped me in the hallway. He began introducing himself, and I interrupted to smile that of course I knew him, but he seemed to have no interest in reminiscing. Instead he mumbled: “We had to print business cards in Shop. I couldn’t think of anything, so I made you these.”
He handed me a long box and a small, red card. In black ink, it read:
KATHY HILL
WOMAN OF WONDER
I stood blinking. Me? A Woman? Of Wonder? The implied existence of an actual future AND unfathomed personal power? I had some questions for this boy.
But he didn’t want to know. He seemed to want to get away from me as fast as possible. Whereas I was charmed to the point that I’d have married him on the spot.
“There are five hundred of them” was all he would say instructively, before disappearing again into the crowd. Like the high-school girl I was, I prayed he was merely very shy and hadn’t been suddenly repulsed.
To this day that boy--who ducked me in the halls thereafter--has no idea of his impact on my life, how he shifted the choices I’d make and the way I thought about myself.
Patient, nonexistent reader, can you imagine? Can you imagine if EVERY girl at a crucial, still-tender age received such an inexplicable gift? If every boy could be assured he was a MAN of Wonder?
For the next few years, with some new acquaintance, I’d imperiously offer “my card,” staring straight-faced and then laughing.
But secretly my cherished cards and their unlikely message were far from a joke to me.
As my home page here attests, I still believe, however, that somebody is watching. And apparently Somebody sometimes sees when we might need a little encouragement in life. In my case, at least, and I hope everyone’s.
Such encouragement once came to me in the form of a dimpled high-school boy with thick brown hair. We’d gone to school together forever, and I still have some of our class pictures, documenting the abundant mane, the depths of those dimples.
By high school the dimpled boy was nowhere on my radar. I must have passed him in the hall a thousand times, and I’d like to think I at least nodded, but I really don’t remember.
Then, one day, as classes were changing, he stepped out of the crowd and stopped me in the hallway. He began introducing himself, and I interrupted to smile that of course I knew him, but he seemed to have no interest in reminiscing. Instead he mumbled: “We had to print business cards in Shop. I couldn’t think of anything, so I made you these.”
He handed me a long box and a small, red card. In black ink, it read:
KATHY HILL
WOMAN OF WONDER
I stood blinking. Me? A Woman? Of Wonder? The implied existence of an actual future AND unfathomed personal power? I had some questions for this boy.
But he didn’t want to know. He seemed to want to get away from me as fast as possible. Whereas I was charmed to the point that I’d have married him on the spot.
“There are five hundred of them” was all he would say instructively, before disappearing again into the crowd. Like the high-school girl I was, I prayed he was merely very shy and hadn’t been suddenly repulsed.
To this day that boy--who ducked me in the halls thereafter--has no idea of his impact on my life, how he shifted the choices I’d make and the way I thought about myself.
Patient, nonexistent reader, can you imagine? Can you imagine if EVERY girl at a crucial, still-tender age received such an inexplicable gift? If every boy could be assured he was a MAN of Wonder?
For the next few years, with some new acquaintance, I’d imperiously offer “my card,” staring straight-faced and then laughing.
But secretly my cherished cards and their unlikely message were far from a joke to me.
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