Pizza

A week ago I was very hungry and didn't want to cook, so I went to the pizza shop next door to my building.  I ordered two slices, and then handed the woman, Olga, three dollars in coins.  She counted them and said, "Three dollars."  I nodded my head and agreed.  This went on for a little while until I realized in my post-teaching fatigue that two slices cost five dollars, and they only accepted cash.  I had money, but no cash.  She smiled and said, "You pay next time.  I know you.  Don't worry about it."  That's the first time that's ever happened to me in New York.

The other day I grabbed a slice, paid extra for the other time, and then noticed this old woman walking around, but for some reason I saw what I imagined she looked like thirty years ago.

I looked in the mirror earlier and saw my face when I first arrived at college, covered in pimples and anxiety, fearful about the future.

Today I daydreamed a little in class and imagined that my students were fifty years older, and they were cute in an old-age sort of way.  Then I looked at them with these new eyes, having imagined them old and wrinkled, just as they should be some day.  Having seen them old, I saw them as they are now and they all looked a hundred times more beautiful, youthful and stunning than I had thought before I did my little imagination experiment.

You're younger than you think.