Glitter on the highway

A is moving out. She told me during the last visit in the hallway as she came home and I was leaving. Another of our infamous 5 minute conversations. We're neighbors in passing.

"No new noises?" we asked each other after the midnight visit to her balcony to find the wind had been the only thing on mine late one winter evening. "How's your leg?" from her came after seeing me hobble up the stairs that did me in for weeks. "Did you find your keys?" -- from me after I found her sitting on those same steps without them, and let her in the building late one night.

Tan and smiling always, with a blond pixie haircut, blue eyeshadow that somehow works. And glitter. Always glitter -- in her hair, on her face, on her arms.

She sparkles.

I asked where she, the former law student, was headed.

"Home. California. I want to be a screenwriter," she said.

Talk about a 180. I wished her well on this wow journey, following her dreams wherever they'll take her.

Walking out of the building, I saw a sprinkling of glitter on the black mat by the door, a reminder to follow my own.