It is very good to learn something new about yourself each and ever day, i always say. Or i might always say if i was prompted more often.  As it is, i have just said it for sure this once and might say it again, hell, i might even say it again over and over and then it would be true. 

   1138.
     That is one of the things that i learned tonight. 
     That is the precise (give or take about 6, or a hundred if i did drop a hundred as i suspect i might have) number of cement squares that exist on the bridge from downtown to my house.  Or at least from the start of it to my the end at my exit.   
    Why do i know this? What does this mean that i have learned?

   It started like this.  I noticed the other day that someone had been writing things on the sidewalks.  Not crap, not bad drawings but things that were interesting to read.  To wonder what it was they wanted to say, or rather had to say.  Not always, or even often profound, but often enough to keep me reading them.  I discovered that whoever this person was they could speak to me. 

   Tonight i allowed this to take me one step further.  I allowed this step into my head.  I began to realize that a connection was being formed between me and this person.  As if what they were doing was their specific piece of art and that i was the viewer in the gallery.  I could feel a sort of bond forming between myself as i read each ditty.  And then something profound happened to me.  This question was asked, 'Have you ever counted all of the squares across the bridge?'   I walked on and considered for a second, i knew they meant the cement sidewalk squares, and i kind of wondered why it had never occurred to me to do so.  After all i have walked that bridge well over a hundred times.  

   I was still pondering this when a few squares later i saw the next note, 'the cement ones.'  I felt myself smiling to myself.  I was in touch with this person enough to have already understood their meaning.  For some reason felt a glimmer of hope and understanding building between us.  I was actually considering and discarding the option of counting the squares because i had already entered the bridge and did not want to walk back when i saw the next square past the last.  There was just a number, circled, a 21.  I knew that they meant this to mean that if i wanted to start i should just start at 21 there because they had counted for me. 

   I was in awe.  I was talking, on some deeper level to this person whom i have never even seen let alone talked to.  So i started counting.  I think i was at about 60 when i began to have a little argument with myself in between numbers.  Why was i counting?  What was the purpose.  This person probably meant it as a joke anyway.  There is no way they counted all the way across.  But i kept counting.  At least 4 times on my way across i had this same debate within myself.  Why bother, what is the point, how ridiculous.  Especially at the point in the middle when i found i was only 75% sure i hadn't already counted 700.  But you know what kept winning the debate for me, what kept me counting? 

   Simply the fact that there was this bond, real or not, between us and i had faith.  That this person had wanted someone to think about this.  Perhaps not do it, perhaps do it, but most important to think about it.  And i was, i was thinking a lot about it as i walked and counted. 

   I don't know if i have felt this kind of connection to a stranger in this way before.  I have an art collection, mostly originals, each of which means something to me.  Not like this though, my art, isn't a conduit from the artist to myself it is a conduit to myself from myself.  It is a gauge of myself finding context and beauty within myself from my art.  

   But this simple reading of a sidewalk, this forming of a connection, it reveals to me the something special that they wanted to spread.  They have made a difference.  I actually want to find a way to let them know.  

  If i had someway of writing a number down on the sidewalk as i finished my count to 1138 i would have done that.  And even if they had never walked down my exit, someone would, and maybe they would have counted.  Perhaps they would have the same number, perhaps a different one but it still would have been communication.  A chain, of sorts.  Without being chain mail. 

   I am pretty happy and content right now. 

   Something that i am rather surprised about considering how disappointed i was in AI.   It was a piece of sentimental, awful, horse twaddle.  Why, oh, why did they have to do that to the movie?  Sigh.