The woman in red

I turned my head all the way around in curiosity. There she was! I could not resist the sight of her! She was dressed in bright red, a distinct radiance of color that made her stand out in the crowd. She managed to stop me in my tracks as she wrapped my attention in her. It’s been almost 9 years since this encounter and I just cannot stop thinking about her. I never will.

Here’s the story.

Circa May 2010. It was yet another busy evening in downtown Sacramento, California. State workers were getting off their shifts and scurrying home to their loved ones. I wrapped up my day as an IT consultant for the California Employment Development Department. Like many others, I preferred the Sacramento Regional Transit ( SacRT) light rail service to commute. The Gold Line was a comfortable 50 minute ride home.

I checked my watch; 4:45 PM it was. Time to start walking to the station at 8th and O, hardly a 50 meter jaunt around the corner from work. As I threw my backpack over my shoulders, my mind drifted to an interesting problem that came up at work that day. My engineering mind veered off into a land of deep analysis with visions of servers, software, firewalls and everything geeky.

I came up the short flight of stairs onto the side walk on 7th Street. the The SacRT track ran in parallel to the side walk like a faithful companion. I was completely lost in my own world thinking about the problem. Nevertheless, I was sort of aware of the the sounds of the cars and people on the street. I started to approach that gentle left turn of the side walk and the tracks leading to the station on O.

I heard the sound of the 4:55 Gold Line approaching from behind – the chime of the train operator’s bell and the vibrations of the monster on rails. The thud grew louder and the increasing vibrations of the ground under me clearly announced the presence of the train in close quarters.

I was less that five feet away from taking the left turn to the station. But my body was on auto-pilot while my brain kept me distracted with that interesting problem at work. I did not turn left! I kept walking towards the tracks. Thinking back, the train and I must have been less than 10 feet apart at that point. I was completely oblivious of this impending danger.

Just at that moment, I heard an extremely loud series of thuds coming from somewhere behind me.

Thud! Thud!! Thud!!! Like a giant running with iron boots.

The sound of the train drowned in comparison. The thuds were so loud that I turned my head all the way around in curiosity, even as my legs kept moving me closer to the moving train.

There she was! I could not resist the sight of her. I stopped immediately!

She was dressed in bright red, a distinct radiance of color that made her stand out in the crowd. She wore a red blouse, a red skirt and black boots. She looked young and athletic. She was running very fast towards me. She managed to stop me in my tracks as she wrapped my attention in her.

At that same moment the train sped past me taking the left turn onto O Street. The rush of the wind that the train displaced and the clanking of the wheels on the tracks slapped me back into a state of complete awareness. In a flash I realized how close I had come to walking into extinction and that the strange woman had just stopped me from taking that next dangerous step!

Thankful and curious to know who that woman in red was, I ran towards the station following her several feet from behind. But she magically vanished among the crowd at the station.

Who was this woman? Why did the sound of her running reverberate with so much intensity that I stopped to find out? Her all-red attire cut through all other visual artifacts and stood out to get my fullest attention. Why?

The more I ruminate on this question, only one answer keeps presenting itself – to appreciate and be grateful for this moment and this day that I have. I believe that the woman in red was my angel that day who imparted this life lesson in no uncertain terms.

Stephen Ray Vaughan (an American musician, singer, song writer and record producer) once said “…the way people come into your life when you need them, it’s wonderful and it happens in so many ways. It’s like having an angel. Somebody comes along and helps you get right.”

It’s been almost 9 years since my encounter with that woman in red. I just cannot stop thinking about her. I never will.