She Smiled at Me

A few months before I met Gale, I was Eurailing through Europe. I was on a train, delayed in Innsbruck, when I saw a train beside us begin to head out in the opposite direction. I got a wild hair, grabbed my pack and caught it on the fly. Eurail passes were good for most trains, so ticket wise I was OK.
I ended up, late that night in Zurich, in a cold blowing rain, looking for a hotel. I finally stumbled into a very upscale place that had an annex for folks like me, that is to say tiny rooms and distant bathrooms. I pushed through the front door into a crowd of people, very formally dressed. I had on 10 day jeans, a five day beard,  a slouch hat pulled down over my head, and a backpack, all dripping wet. I was freezing, hungry, and miserable.
A lady was standing with her escort among the more fortunate clientele. She was tiny, with long honey blond hair, and she had violet colored eyes. Her dress was velvet, the color of red wine and she wore matching long gloves of that era. She was gorgeous!
Most of the crowd there had no reaction to me walking through them, other than stepping as far back as necessary. But she smiled. Not a small civil smile, but a real smile of greeting and understanding, and that was all that occurred between us.
I don't remember her in any romantic sense. I never believed in love at first sight, before I met my Gale, and even then it may have been love at first sound, since I think I first feel in love with her gentle voice. But sometimes, on cold rainy mornings when the thought of coffee and solitude call me awake, I watch the rain and remember that smile. I think about the lady, that I never envied her apparent wealth, status, and possible fame, But I hope that her life has been one of  peace and happiness, those things that have been so prevalent in my own life. I wish this for her in gratitude for that smile, for a lone wanderer, far from home.