Taciturn

God taught me a little more about patience today. You see there is an old lady who always hangs around the campus. She is a student in our adult education program. She has been a part time student ever since I started working here about 7 years ago, and she will probably be a part time student 7 years from now.

When I first started she used to terrorize our office as she was sort of mean and grumpy. She even cussed out my previous boss once, and has been known to cuss out other school administrators. However for some reason I've always tolerated her. I just give her my usual solemn yet professional demeanor. Over the years she has mellowed out a lot. She hasn't yelled or cussed people out. She does camp out in offices though. I mean she comes in for questions, and stays an hour asking more and more questions and telling stories.

I haven't run into her for awhile since I don't see students as much. But both of my counselor's were out sick today. So that left just me. She asked me to fax some loan deferment papers for her, and the whole thing lasted about an hour. I was trying to rush her out as I had other things to do, not a lot, but more important than her. Well towards the end of our visit, I kind of just settled in, maybe I gave up trying to rush her out. I thought I had to help her, might as well take my time with it. We got to talking a little bit and we actually had a wonderful conversation.

It struck me how lonely this woman must be. 77 years old, kids all grown up out of the house, all of them musicians who live in Germany, and other parts of the world. I don't think she has a husband, she just hangs around the school all day. She said she was going to the library and was going to stick around until they kick her out at 11pm.

As she left she turned to me and said "Smile." and I said "Oh this is my normal countenance."

"Taciturn." She said. "Taciturn?" I replied.

"Look it up", she replied.

So I did and taciturn means; habitually uncommunicative or reserved in speech and manner, reserved, introverted. That's totally me! Taciturn, I like it. You learn something new every day.

She went on to say she was the opposite, knew everything about the world around her but dumb when it comes to knowing herself. She said she has found that introverted people are a lot better about knowing who they are, more self aware. Anyways, it was an interesting conversation from an unlikely situation. I'm glad that we got to get to know each other a little better. Maybe the next time I see her, I won't be in a rush to get rid of her.