The lady sitting over yonder from me, she’s a hipster. It’s in the way she dresses.

Well, no. Not really.

But today, she has on a white long-sleeved knitted jersey with skinny black hoops. And for pants, a pair of black relaxed-fit linen trousers, hem rolled-up. Black Converse Chuck Taylor’s, the white around the sneakers just a tad scuffed, completes the cool nonchalance every self-respecting hipster would have you know not much thought went into today’s look. It’s all about the feel at the moment. It’s all about feeling the moment.

Like I can’t be a hipster. I fiddle with my tie too much.

Back to the lady. Three kids in-tow. The oldest, a teenage boy, is passed out on the opposite end of the couch from her. The two daughters are going all out for the perfect ten at cartwheels. At their tender age, you can tell that all three take after mom’s cool. They just seem free, unperturbed, cavalier. Perhaps not quite hipsters yet. But exactly, “yet.”

A man limps over. He appears drunk. It’s in his gait. Not staggering. A wobbly saunter. Or is it that his right leg is half an inch longer than his left?

The lady smiles at him. A playful sort of half-grin. He smiles back wryly.

I know that grin. All too well.

On our wedding night, I asked her if she would marry me. After hearing my own question, I thought she might laugh. I didn’t say it to make her laugh. She was standing just across from me. The lights in the room were turned down low. She was quiet. She didn’t fix me in her gaze. That stuff is purely in the movies.

Then she said this which I’ll never forget. She said, “When I was little, I saw a sparrow that hopped about unevenly like you. I have loved you ever since.”

Slowly, she looked up at me with that half-grin, all sensual. My knee buckled.

Today, our youngest, when she readies herself to execute a cartwheel and I were within earshot, would say to me, “Papa sparrow, watch me.”

Yes, indeed. My wife is a hipster. Our son and two daughters, who take after their mother, would most likely be hipsters.

Me? Fat chance. I fiddle with my tie too much, and my right leg is half an inch longer than my left.