Today I met the beautiful Gloria Noval on the bus ride home. I sat in the very front seat of the bus right behind the bus driver and she came on the bus almost out of breathe. I was in the middle of searching through my bag for my headphones, but as soon as she came on I could tell she was a talker and my ears were elated. We got the talking about her business in NY. Her husband had just had a hip replacement at the NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases and she was there to visit him. She and her husband have been married for 45 years, they are both psychologists and just by the way she talked you could tell she loved him very much. She used to counsel young women in abusive relationships and shared with me the secret to her happy marriage. "Fight the issue... not the person." When arguing, never talk down to the person or talk badly about the person.. only the issue at hand. Simple and brilliant at the same time. From that point on, we went on to talk about her four adopted children, our professions, insecure girls, motherhood, genetics, fabric shopping, thrifting, and the list goes on. She had a hard time with the bus constantly stopping and going and was getting nauseous, so all I wanted to do was keep her talking and not think too much about the movement. When I got to my stop we said our good-byes and parted ways, but I knew I wanted to record somewhere that I met Gloria today and she made my day a bit brighter.
