You Look Fantastic! Are You Married? (photos taken with iphone:honeysuckle, garlic mustard, the woods)

Yes, those words were said to me today, by a man I don't know, standing beside me at a stop light, resting against his bike, wearing biker shorts, a helmet and biker gloves. We were stopped at the same stop light waiting to cross the street. Just the two of us--how cozy.

And I've been trained how to answer, or instructed what to do when I get hit on or harassed on the street. My daughter is one of the leading advocates in this country to stop street harassment. http://www.stopstreetharassment.com/index.htm

And I promise if it had been a dark night and this man had approached me on a deserted street I would have panicked. But it happened with two police cars, sirens, jammed and honking traffic, all surrounding a very smashed up car, all within twenty feet of where we stood.

I had just finished the running part of my daily run/walk I take through our local woods. Yes, I live in Queens NY, and yes I live a half hour subway ride from Time Square, and before I moved here I thought Queens was miles and miles of beat up old row houses, but I was wrong. We live by a six mile wooded park. I exercise there most days. Half way through the park you come to a busy road--Woodhaven Boulevard--the scene of today's horrible crash.

Let me backtrack. I am having computer troubles. I had to delete my old blog today and create a new one and I didn't really know how. It took me forever and I was ready to throw my laptop across the room and revel in seeing it smash into tiny pieces. Yesterday my computer froze repeatedly, as I tried for hours to burn CD's. I finally gave up. I think I need a new laptop. I hope the gods of laptops will help me find one that doesn't drive me CRAZY!

I got up early this morning and worked on the "damn computer." I was listening to the news. It is going to get hot today. It's probably reached the 85 degrees it was supposed to hit by now. But this morning the radio told me it was 67 out and that meant I better get my butt in gear and go run/walk in the woods before it became too hot. Poor Beckie. Besides all her tragic computer problems she gets sick in the heat and sun. She gets nauseated and headaches and feels faint. Poor Beckie.

So I went into the bathroom to comb my hair. I've been trimming it every morning for the past week, too cheap and not trusting enough to go let a professional do it. Every day I think, I can make it look good this time. By next week if things don't improve I'm going to be bald. I'm going to have to wear a wig like so many of my seriously religious Jewish neighbors who are not allowed to show their hair in public. I look horrible. I was so mad at my hair and my computer and was really feeling in a poor Beckie mood.

But the sun was getting warmer as I stewed over my hair, so I put on a hat and sunglasses to hide the no make-up, blood-shot, blurry eyes and headed out.

I ran into the woods, listening to my ipod music and trying to ignore the pain in my shins, the burning inside of my lungs, and made my mind focus on just getting to that stoplight a mile and a half ahead. Then in my rules after that it's okay to walk the rest of my work out.

And that's when I saw it, waiting for the light to turn green at Woodhaven, sweaty and tired and out of breath. It was a little convertible so smashed up I knew the person or people in it did not walk away. The passengers were already gone. A wrecker was backing up to the mess to load what was left of, an hour ago, stunning little convertible onto his flat bed. Hospitals, ICU's and funeral homes filled my mind. Tears filled my eyes. And as I stood at the cross walk, trying to take this fresh tragedy in, an unknown biker approached me and said, "You look fantastic. Are you married?"

I felt so many things at once. Did he really say I looked fantastic? Must remember to always wear a hat and sunglasses because I really looked like shit! But I couldn't look at him or really concentrate, because all I could see was that smashed up tiny car. Instead of saying all things I've been trained to say, or walk away, I just asked him, "Do you know what happened?" And instead of continuing to hit on me, he told me it was the driver of the other car, he pointed to a second car pulled aside, barely damaged, that had been at fault.

"It's so sad," I said back to him. I don't know why, but I just wanted to sit down and cry. I mean I see sad things all the time. But this was so close. Maybe if I hadn't taken time to trim some more of my ever shrinking hair this morning, or if I hadn't struggled so long with the damn computer, maybe I would have seen it, maybe I would have been hit, maybe I would be dead. I looked past him to the tiny car. It's all I could see.

His voice brought me back, "Are you married?" he asked again. I finally looked at him. He was a normal enough looking guy, a biker, about my age, nice gear, a decent vocabulary.

"Yes." I said, and then my eyes went back past him to the crushed metal object that had not so long ago, even minutes earlier been a car.

"Oh, too bad," he said and then jumped on his bike and headed down the street.

The light had changed and I walked across the busy street leaving behind the wreck, police cars,jammed up traffic, and one overly friendly biker. I headed into the woods again.

I hate it when it takes a flirting biker and a serious car accident for me to wake up from my "poor Beckie" mode. But it worked. I walked through the rest of the woods, admiring each tree, enjoying every stroke of the cool breeze as it floated across my sweaty body. I called out tree and plant names in my head. My heart rate slowed, my anxiety about life and hair and computers, and smashed up cars lifted.

My niece has been living with us since January, and she's a forestry major. She knows her plants and soil! When we take walks together its a wonderful learning experience for me. She has patiently been pointing out plants and trees and with her enthusiasm for our plant brothers and sister, I'm discovering the many wonderful stories that live right in my woods.

And after only a few walks with her, I can now tell the difference between red and white oak trees. I can point out a tulip poplar, a wine berry bush and garlic mustard. I also know that the smaller newer leaves on the garlic mustard are more tender and have a stronger less bitter flavor. We gathered some last week and had it in our green salad. I'm gathering garlic mustard for my salad like I live in a cabin in the back woods instead of in the middle of New York City.

Mostly, though, today as I walked, I was searching for honeysuckle. I spotted a bunch yesterday--the first of the season. Honeysuckle is very special to me, and it's my youngest daughter's favorite flower. I wondered today as I searched if she loves it for the same reason I do. I've never asked.

I have (or had) three daughters. My oldest daughter died at age 12. It was this time of the year, when everything is just out, green, alive and blooming. Today as I spotted the first of this season's honeysuckle blooms and breathed in their fragrance, I remembered the day after her death. I gathered my my two living daughters, and their best friends and we went exploring in the woods behind our house, like we had so often done with Heidi. We gathered wild flowers and lots of honeysuckle and took it back to the house and put it in a vase for Heidi's funeral.

Every year when I first smell honeysuckle, I remember. I say to myself--this is when she died--when the honeysuckle was in bloom. This is when we went into the woods to make sure she had wildflowers at her funeral. She loved wildflowers. We all did. She and her sisters and their friends half lived in our tree house set in the Kentucky woods behind our home. Every day the kids would collect wildflowers for Heidi and she would play with them on her wheelchair tray while they scampered about her side.

Honeysuckle is sacred to me. Life is sacred. I have to write about it. If I don't, on days like today I think I'll explode with sadness, or sweetness, or so many other feelings I can't even name them all.