Perception

This has been a day about perception.  Not perceptions, which have to do with opinions, but perception, the act of seeing, or not seeing.  It began with a misperception at work this morning.  I was in the psychiatric facility where I spend Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons and chatted briefly with a client who appeared friendly.  As he became quickly and increasingly hostile it occurred to me right away that I had misperceived him. 
     Later on the Canada Line, which is one of our transit train routes in Vancouver, I asked a man in a suit if he could please move his suitcase so I could occupy the seat next to him.  He was going to let me have both seats but I assured him that if he positions the luggage well he can still sit (it was a train coming from the airport and I have taken this route many times following a flight and have never had trouble making room for my luggage and the person in the next seat). He sat down with his suitcase positioned in front of his legs.  I assumed him to be an accounts manager in a bank.  It turns out he works in a business that promotes renewable (wind, solar and geothermal) energy.  We had a great short conversation and I inwardly laughed at how clearly I had misperceived him.
     At the Canada Line train platform I waited for my client, and waited and waited for her.  Forty minutes later, just as I was ready to go home it occurred to me that I had stopped one station too early and for some reason couldn't see the signage.  To cut myself a little slack, the letters on the signage are not very clear or easily seen, but I still might have looked for it had I not been so smugly certain that I was in the last place.  After all, wasn't my client depending on me to help her find her way around town on public transit?  The fact of the matter is I was so engrossed in this interesting conversation about renewable energy with the guy seated next to me that I completely lost my perception of where I was and got off at the wrong stop.
     My client was incredibly forgiving and then I led her out through the wrong exit.  As we were talking together a young man likely younger than twenty-five (the male brain does not develop fully until age twenty-five, though I tend to believe that it doesn't happen till much later) walked right between us to read a sign and seemed absolutely puzzled when I called after him, "Excuse me." A Canada Line staff member teased us both good naturedly about how much he was seeing of us today.
     We got out at the right exit where a very sad looking panhandler thrust his hand in my face for money.  He must have perceived me to be wealthy, though I likely earn not that much more money than he does, but such are perceptions.  Our bus arrived fifteen minutes late.  While we were waiting another young man, clearly younger than twenty-five rode his bike right between us while we were talking.
     At Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park I saw a distant swan on the water that my client could not see without my direction.  She praised my ability to perceive things and then I reminded her of why we got started half an hour late today! 
     Leaving the park, on a street corner, on a metal fence surrounding a vacant lot hundreds of aluminum pie plates cut out to look like stars have been fastened, each with a different wish or message scrawled on it.  I saw just two: "Be kind" and "Believing is seeing".  With both those messages I have nothing left to write today.