Years before kids and my life, I worked at a laundry. Taking in others laundry, dry cleaning, pressing...people flowed in and out of my days, none more memorable than another. There is one memory that clings, well, maybe two, but we'll talk about just the one now.

I smiled a lot then. Everyone got one free of charge. Now this may sound cheap, with no feeling behind it but that isn't so. I had the blissful ignorance of youth and serenity of a satisfied spirit. Work is all the joy I needed. Work offered itself as food to feed my spirit and I ate it up, working long hot hours over steam presses, breathing in the fumes of solvent, and earning the respect of my bosses. Money and clothes passed back and forth across the counter. Looking back, the distance between me, and those on the other side was cavernous. I don't know that I ever thought that, and if I had, what that might have meant to my future. For now I'm grateful for the blessed ignorance.

One bright day, I was working at the register. You might say I was glowing. I'd just finished wiping down all the washers and sweeping the floors; everything gleamed. The floor to ceiling windows filled two walls of the building and the sunlight glossed the floor. All the dry-cleaning machines were running, and everything that needed pressing was done. I just had to wait for the reclaimer (basically a large dryer) to finish so I could press again.

A shadow approached the door and my youthful eagerness bounced me to the register to take care of another customer. A young man came in of course to pick up some dry cleaning. Now, his face escapes the memory and all other things about the process were ordinary; I got his name and collected his things, check the ticket to be sure nothing was missed, hung the clothes on the hook, and rang up his costs. He handed his money over to pay the ticket and then I handed back his change. In the brief moment that our fingers touched, I felt a charge. I know he felt the same tingle because he looked up at me just as suddenly as I looked at him. We both stared uncomfortaby for a moment longer shy and looking down and away, then he was gone.

Now at the time I was living with my now husband. That brief encounter gave me pause but nothing more and why it still stays in my mind has never bothered me before.