After I drove into the lot and parked this morning, I got out of my truck and fumbled around trying to drape my backpack on my right shoulder while holding a phone and a coffee mug in one hand and a folder of papers and a lunch bag in the other, and the backpack kept sliding off my shoulder and down my arm. The sky above was gray, closed over by a low canopy of clouds, and white flecks were fluttering down all around. It was a brisk greeting to a Monday morning in the office, a reminder from Winter that the season, though mild in the Southwest, was still here.

So I made my way back across the lot toward the entrance, toward the red brick building behind it across the street, still wrestling with my backpack, when a couple pushing a stroller walked toward me. “Excuse me, sir-” said the man, a touk-covered Hispanic guy seemingly half my height with a nicely-groomed beard, “would you have a dollar we could have? We’re just trying to get a bus to get over to [some place name I missed].”

Fifteen minutes earlier I was loudly hucking invectives at the driver of a red Ram truck on south I-25 who decided my lane was also his on short notice- a practice I have developed in recent years with a decline in my sensitivities toward others, furthered in part by the Mad Max School of Driving graduates scattered around the city. And earlier in the morning, before I left, I was lost in the caverns of self-doubt because I reflected on my silent weekend, my lack of progress in reunion planning, (a project I’ve hoisted completely on myself because I tend to believe I work poorly with people and that, in general, people don’t like me and therefore do not want to help me with most things in my life- which is fallacious thinking but strongly present within me off and on nevertheless), and the tight soreness in my (aging) back.

The young man’s partner was a Hispanic woman, a little shorter than him, with long wavy light-colored hair topped by a knitted pink cap. The little bundle in the stroller was a dark-haired boy with hair like the man’s, with darting brown eyes, of probably about two. As I looked at him sitting, I saw white flakes land on his dark coat ad I felt a jet of cold wind hit the back of my neck, ad I looked back at him. “You know, I don’t have any cash on me, but let me check my truck real quick.” “Thank you, sir.”

“You know, I only had these coins in my truck”- it was 48 cents. “I tell you what, if you cross the street with me, I can go in and check at my desk to see if I have any other change.” “Sure, no problem- thank you- what is your name?… My name is Chris. And this is my gal, Samantha- and he, he is Isaiah.”

Twelve hours before, I was sitting at home, concluding an uneventful Sunday evening frustrated over fatigue and isolation and lack of productivity in my life, wrangling ghosts that periodically drop by and delight in laying bear my neuroses, wading out into that pool of inky invisibility again. Self-pity, like any other form of illness, is always an uninvited guest with impeccable timing.

I didn’t have change at my desk, it turned out- but the bus statin was two blocks to the east! I could just walk down with them and buy a pass for them.

They had waited outside the building at the front door, standing on wet cement under the gray clouds and the gentle sprinkle of white flakes. I told them about my lack of change, but about my plan, and so we walked.

He was 29, while she was 34. They were both from Taos, but he had come to Albuquerque 13 years ago, and she had ended up here 5 years later. They had met in a Walgreens where she had worked, and where he went to get something to drink. He asked me if I had been to Taos, if I liked it, if I was an architect (because they had looked at signs in the building windows showing jobs in progress that had our firm name in it, which has “Architects” in it), which he wondered about when he saw it because he did tile work and he saw tile in the poster photos in a building picture and thought that was cool, and that he was looking for tile work. They had been together since they met, and for three years of that, they were homeless. He walked by me and talked openly, if not somewhat like in a job interview, while she walked behind us with the stroller.

We reach the Alvarado Bus Terminal building and went to the purchase window, and he saw the Gold Pass prices, and said “30 dollars? We can get them for 10 at the mission…”, and he turned to me and said, “thank you, sir- we don’t need to spend $30 on one pass when she and I can get one for $10. But thank you for you kindness- we don’t need to get these.”

I saw the ATM up the road in my brain, and again mentioned the next option.

An hour earlier I had been laying in my bed, awake, trying to push away Monday, still wrestling with one of the ghosts who had joined me when I woke up this morning. “Love is something you have to deserve.” Love is a prize, a reward that goes to the winners.

Like the clouds that covered the city this morning, that dark fog had settled in my mind in the dark hours of morning, a bedbug of the brain I struggle to eradicate.

We walked, and Chris continued to talk to me. This time, Samantha walked with us, by us. She had big eyes and her teeth were straight and complete. He was handsome and youngish in his face. Occasionally Isaiah yelled a painful cry but pointed at something across the street. They acknowledged him and Chris kept talking. They had qualified for a program that put them in a small apartment. He is looking for work. They come downtown faithfully to check in at the shelters. “We used to drink”, he tells me, “but that got old.” Samantha has another son, an 8 year-old she had right before they met.

We reach the ATM, and I say I’ll be right back. I withdraw $20- enough for them to get two month bus passes- and then I go to them and tell them I hope they find work and that they continue to fight on together. I offer him the money, and he says “You can give it to her.” And in an odd moment, after she takes it, she gives me a side hug as he again says thank you. He reaches out to shake hands, and then closes the gap and we hug. “Take care, you guys”, I say. “Nice to meet you, Isaiah!” “Say goodbye to Bruce”, Samantha says. He looks the other way across across the street and gurgles.

We separate. I smell the air. I realize $20 is little to give form what I have. And I feel both cold and warm inside, because it happened.

It snowed heavier in the afternoon outside. I walked up front again at one point to go upstairs, and the view outside was veiled by the white curtain. It is warm in the building and cold out on the street.

Today, it is cold in some, and warm in others. And today I feel warm.

Love is for winners? No.

Love is for the willing- regardless of if you are winning or losing.