When I am in a weird or tired frame of mind, I go talk to strangers. I am personable enough and can pretty much talk to a book of stamps so it isn’t hard for me to strike up a conversation. The reason why that I go roaming is that I usually learn something kind of cool and on the other hand, there are no expectations.
I have said before I have huge commitment issues so I guess you can say I am a love and leave ‘em kind of girl, 
especially when discussing things in a coffee shop or in a bar. I’m comfortable in these places. I’ve had some pretty unique conversations recently and the newscoma of old would have put on her trusty cape and ran to the computer to document all the inanities and serious coolness that I had witnessed. I’ve been going through this thing that I miss blogging for fun and I should do it more often because when you do things for dough-re-mi, they are no longer as much fun. I love talking about politics, but when it’s all you do, you sort of just want to talk about books, catfood, do zombies remember smoking cigarettes or that your dog’s breath having a high stink factor.
Well, these things entertain me.
And so I will take you to the meeting of a stranger who helped me want to write again.
There was the guy I met who was a gravedigger. He had the kindest eyes I’ve ever seen and, quite frankly, was built like you could imagine a man that works in the dirt would. Tight and sinewy, he was listening to a conversation I was having about reality television (No POLITICS or people bitching at me about politics when they don’t know me because I honestly need a break from it thus seeking out a new ear and voice) and I mentioned that I loved Deadliest Catch. I also said that staged dating reality shows make me want to stab a Hummer.
He said, “I do too. It’s a show that makes me cry and it’s real. They should win an Emmy this year.”
We went on to discuss how it was hard not to bawl when Capt. Phil died and how the finale was just as devastating as Edgar told Sig he was ready to take a break.
My gravedigger said, “Sig felt like he had done something wrong. Men do that. We hide behind anger because we can’t deal with stronger emotions because they are bruising to our very souls. We take it out on those people we care about entirely too often. We shouldn’t but we do.”
A poet … I found a man that puts coffins in the ground who was wrapping words around as if they were light feathers caught in the sun.
We continued to talk, with other folks I might add, about genders and what is expected and what is reality.
He knew Squirrel Queen’s father and mentioned that he had been in charge of burying her grandmother last year. He said he had gotten him out of a jam awhile back but he didn’t tell me why or what J.D. had actually done for him. I didn’t press it and no one else did either.
“Are there ghosts at the cemeteries you work at?” I said, because sometimes I have the social skills of a cabbage.
He smiled, “I think so. I feel the air stir sometimes when I am alone. I know someone is there and I always try to say hello, to let them know I’m taking care of them the best I can.”
The conversation went on a bit but it was time for me to leave. We talked of many things, of how the heat destroyed the fresh flowers on the graves, on how he sometimes saw people crying desperate tears for their losses and how he would wait for them leaving them with their grief. He talked of his first child and how she still spoke to spirits in their older house and how she would smile at things he could not see and how he could feel them though when he was alone with the day-to-day tasks with his job.
“What is your name?” he asked as I stood up to go.
“I am just nobody really, but my friends call me Trace,” I smiled.
“You having a bad day? You definitely aren’t nobody,” he laughed and reached for my hand, shaking it within his. “I am Thomas.”
I said it was nice to meet him and that I was having a day of having the self-confidence of roadkill, a summer actually but I didn’t tell him that although I believe I could have and it would have been more than okay.He nodded knowingly saying he had been there, done that.
“You are going to remember me as Thomas the Gravedigger. And when you do, that’s alright with me,” he said. “You aren’t telling me everything and that’s okay too. Did you just need a day to be free?”
I nodded.
“Well, were you?” Thomas asked.
“Yes,” I said. “And thank you more than you will ever know.”
A gravedigger taught me some lessons in life and humility.
Thank you Thomas, I needed that. I needed it like water. I needed to not be anyone or anything other than Trace for a little while who likes a show about crab fishing and likes to talk about ghosts.
Thank you, sweet gravedigger.