Brushed by the Pollen of a Colleague in Bloom

"Would you like me to take the picture?" he asked, and of course the answer was yes.  We had driven down to Brattleboro, an interesting town spilling out of the hills of southern Vermont into the Connecticut River.  The eventual nexus of the trip was intended to be lunch at the cafe nestled precisely over the elbow of the river, but of course after leisurely strolling the main street and turning the corner toward lunch we discovered that one of the two days each week the cafe is closed was this one.  No worries, since lunch had been merely an excuse to visit again the town and drink in again the view of the river.  The former we could satisfy elsewhere, and the latter could be equally accomplished from the bridge nearby.

It was there, during repeated attempts at taking long-armed pictures of ourselves with the river view as background that the passerby volunteered his question.  We accepted, we posed, he snapped, and then we undertook the obligatory smalltalk.  "Are you visiting?"  "Where are you from?"  Etc.  And as usual we found ourselves living in a very small world.  Steve, our new photographer, had taught at the University of Iowa, among other places, on environmental conservation, among other things, and just like that we felt we had been brushed with the pollen of a passing bee.  For the second in as many days we had bumped into a new acquaintance with sympathetic passions.

Yesterday, at the dairy farm, it was Maria, a teacher from New York state taking a leave-of-absence to research and write about the precious and often precarious pathway of our food from farm to table, and the valiant, often sacrificial endeavors of those closest to the soil, the animals, and the vicissitudes of nature.  We agreed to keep in touch -- fellow encouragers, if nothing else, which is no small thing.  This next day it was Steve, whose photographic assistance turned into a leisurely stroll and a long corner conversation waiting for the Amtrak train to move on past the station and the road crossing.  He told us about his work; we spoke of our growing interests; we promised to keep in touch -- learners, affirmers, stimulating pollen of compatible blossoms.

We did, eventually, find our lunch -- a sandwich at a bakery to which Steve had directed us, with its own view of the river -- and then we were off to Walpole for ice cream, and then to Grafton for a long walk in the woods.  By that point we would have calories to burn away, and lots of conversation to share.