T'ai Chi

I spent the day in Annapolis yesterday, with my father and a friend -- my father because I invited him to spend some unstructured down time with me this week, and my friend because he needed an escape from his apartment.

After lunch we sat on a bench by the water and smoked some good cigars, talking about boats and life and watching the world go by. A man, white and maybe in his late-30s, did t'ai chi in the sunlight near the edge of the park, methodically and purposefully. Two younger black boys, one thin and one heavier set, both maybe 13 or 14 or so, were doing skateboard tricks up and down the curbs nearby. Tourists streamed through, as they do, chatting and taking photographs.

Then the most amazing thing happened.

The boys were staring at the man and they started to mock his practice. He saw them, it was clear, but he continued through until he reached a stopping point a good while later. I looked away for a moment to my boats and my cohorts, and when I glanced back I saw him demonstrating a basic move to the thin boy, who was facing him, mirroring what he was doing, trying, clearly, to understand it. Skateboard down, lying on the ground, a relic from a moment just gone by when mocking was king and t'ai chi was freaky. Hands up. Hands down. Up as we fill the lungs. Exhale and dooowwn.

"No, no, no! Like this!" his heavier-set friend said. A second skateboard fell to the curb, and in that moment the three of them were there, strangers so oddly brought together, doing t'ai chi in the sunshine in a park by the water in Annapolis, straight out of nowhere.

How many such moments take place in the world in the course of a day? Am I left to lament the fact that it isn't more or to celebrate that I experienced this one -- perhaps so small and so large all at the same time?