Clementine

I was walking home down 7th Avenue the other night from a long day at church.

Sometimes I walk, rather than take the subway, to clear my head. Not that walking a busy avenue in New York always clears the head--but walking itself can't hurt.

There's a grocery store on the way and as I walked past, a sign in front caught my eye: clementines from Spain - $5.99 a box. $5.99 is three to four dollars cheaper than I would pay at my neighborhood grocer (don't ask about the variability in food prices in New York--one of life's great mysteries), so, a slave to my craving and my miserliness, I ducked inside.

There, standing next to the stacked boxes of clementines, was a couple who happen to be two of my favorite people from church. In such a big congregation, there are people whom I see occasionally and that is far too little. These are two of those folks. She happens to be an amazing artist.

We had four or five minutes of precious conversation as we bought clementines together. They were headed downtown, past my street, and offered to give me a lift in the cab, which bought us a few more minutes of talk. It was good talk--quiet, interested, not rushed, and genuine.

We parted ways as I hopped out of the cab at my street and wished one another a very Merry Christmas.

It wasn't deep conversation. We didn't solve the problems of the world or map out the next five years of any of our lives. But this interaction struck me as pure. And sweet. And satisfying. And left me feeling really, really good.

Just like eating a... well... you know.