CIRCLES AND SMALL PLANETS
Cindy Maddera
See this Instagram photo by @elephant_soap * 4 likes
Michael and I ended up at our favorite Indian food buffet on 39th street Saturday. Our plans were to eat lunch and then head over to a hipster craft show. We were sitting there, with our plates of warm saucy food. I was half eating with my hands, using my naan to shovel masala on a spoon. A woman walked by on her way to the buffet line and I looked at her and said to Michael "I know that girl." Michael looked over at the woman and said "You just know her pants." He was referring to her multi colored striped leggings. I disagreed with him. "No...I know her." I wasn't sure, but I thought her name might be Trinity. I told him that we were in yoga class together at the downtown Y in OKC and that she went off to do her yoga teacher training. She came back and taught the class we'd taken together. Then I went off and did my teacher training.
Michael ended up at the buffet line at the same time as her and cornered her. I could see him pointing at me. When she passed back by our table she stopped. We talked about that class we'd been in. We talked about teaching yoga and some of the people we both new in Oklahoma who were still teaching or not teaching. I asked if she was just visiting. She said that she was. Her husband was doing a greenhouse workshop in some small town an hour away and she had driven up to go to a yoga class and look around Kansas City. She asked if I was also visiting. I told her "no", explained that I had moved there in 2011, almost five years ago. I told her that it was a great city and that she should check out the Nelson Art Museum while she was around. Then we said our goodbyes and parted ways.
As she left, I realized that I never once said anything about Chris. She didn't know Chris; hadn't ever seen us together. Which was rare. Chris and I were like salt and pepper shakers. Our friends and acquaintances were shared. Even the owner of our favorite coffee place knew us a one unit. Yet here was this person who only knew me as me. For once I didn't have to explain anything. I didn't have to say anything about moving here with Chris or how he died. I didn't have to explain how I stopped teaching yoga when Chris died and never really felt the need to teach any more. It's not like I was hiding all of that or anything. It was just unnecessary information. I could freely talk about my life and how I was happy with this move. I was free to talk about my life as my own. That is to say, I do not regret being part of a salt pepper set. It just makes me appreciate the singularity of being, I don't know, a sugar shaker.
It's still such an odd coincidence to have run into her at a random Indian restaurant in Kansas City. Just another reminder of how small and compacted we are in a such a vast space. Just another reminder of our connections.