Yesterday I found myself in one of my tagging along moments, alone but not unhappily so, in a local library while Hubby disappeared into the building bowels for a meeting. Earlier we had had lunch with a large group of friends we hadn’t seen for a long time, and it made sense for me to play by myself in the library rather than making him late for the meeting by dropping me home, so there I was.

I’d collected several books to browse, plus a couple of quilt magazines I’m a sucker for, and settled in one of the reading chairs near the back where you can look up and check out the people exiting the library through the creek side, at least that’s what I assumed that foresty looking area was.

A rather frail, older gentleman had been sitting in the same area moments before. I’d been mildly curious about him, wondering what his story was, and couldn’t help imagining what his circumstances were. I had concluded he was in or near his 80’s, probably widowed and no one else at home so he idled his days away in the air conditioned comfort of the library where it was a little less lonely. As I’m sitting there flipping magazine pages and thinking, said old gentlemen hobbles back over and sits–not in the seat at the end–putting space between us as most people would, but in the seat right next to me.

My brain was still churning around an entertaining conversation about Peru I’d had with a woman at the luncheon we’d just left. I’d jokingly told her how cheated I’d felt when I was in Sillustani where so many visitors have reported experiences with flashes of psychic energy and I hadn’t felt anything. She had turned quite serious then, and told me some hair-raising things that had happened to her in the same areas on her own Peruvian visits. There were stories about several Shaman who had told her so many things about herself in that how in the world did you know way, plus other far out and more recent adventures right next door in Wyoming during a pioneering event she’d just come back from.

Now I’m quite fascinated by these things, and have said that the only thing that makes any sense to me is the Hindu sense of Karma as that’s the only way I can live fairly comfortably in a world where people seem to get away with all kind of atrocities and never seem to suffer for it, so far be it for me to come make any judgments on how other people see life.

So I said as much to her and reckoned that the reason I never had such interesting experiences myself is that I was born into a family of skeptics that laughed off such things, and that I probably be scared sh**less if anything like that happened to me. I’m sure if I ever had any psychic ability, then I must have taught myself to turn the switch off long ago. She agreed that most if not all of us are probably born with the same ability to tune in that she has, but we do turn it off–consciously or unconsciously–because we are scared. Remembering our conversation about leaving oneself open to psychic energy, I decided to try a little experiment. I would then and there leave myself open to whatever came into my mind.

Right away I began hearing a little voice that said that old man is so lonely he spends his days in the library because it offers the only company he’ll have all day. You could talk to him. You could very well be the only ray of sunshine in his life today. Immediately–like a tiny little angel and devil perched on either side of my shoulders –I heard the second voice. This is the library, not a community shelter for lost souls. Let the old man be and tend to your own red wagon to which the angel countered, you’re  not so young yourself. Someday people may choose to ignore you and not pass pleasantries because they think you’re too old.

But I continued to sit there, my little angel and devil arguing about what to do. How does one do this sort of thing anyhow? at the same time making it seem a perfectly natural thing to do in such a setting? Right about then a real-live couple sauntered past us heading out the back exit.

I heard a voice blurt out, Is that the creek side where they have the concerts in the evening? and it hadn’t come from the angel or devil, it came from my mouth. The old man seemed a tad startled but responded that yes it was, and he believed there was one scheduled that very evening. Now that I had slid my way in, I casually opined how nice it was to have such a comfortable library where one could spend time in the cool and take advantage of all the free stuff they offered the public as well–like the creek side concerts. He responded that yes, it certainly was the best place to be, then sat there as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do next. After a couple  quiet moments, he got up and off and I felt good that I had talked to him.

A few minutes later he came back and said, I asked in front and they told me the concert is tonight. I thanked him for that information, surprised that he had expended all that energy for me. Still not smiling, he went off to my right and I saw him take a different seat–with a large table between his seat and the others, and around the corner from my row.

Hubby came in sight around then, meeting over and ready to go home, so I handed him the books I’d been leafing through and asked if he could check them out for me on his card as mine was at home in my purse. As we were leaving I looked back to see what my old friend was doing. He was still there all right, fast  asleep with his chin resting on his chest, and nobody at all was bothering him.

Everything I’d been thinking went out the proverbial window. Just as I’d figured him, he must have figured me to be a chatty, lonely old woman looking for male company, and one not knowing when to leave an old man to nap peacefully. So much for opening myself to the psychic force within me! I was pretty sure I’d failed my first psychic sensitivity test. When I related this story to Hubby on the way home, his exact words to me were, “Honeybun, you don’t have a psychic bone in your body!”