This morning a nice guy talked to me on the escalator on the way up from the bus tunnel. Nothing major, just chit-chat:
"Ready for the workday?"
"Got cold last night didn't it?"
"You have a good one today."
It put me in a great mood, making that tiny quick connection with another person, a fellower traveler in this life who needed to be at work, like me, by 7 a.m. I found out that he had arrived only last night from Dallas, and shared with him that my husband had just gotten back from there after a weekend business trip. At the top of the escalator, we said goodbye and went in separate directions, but the smile stayed on my face and my step was a little springier than it would have been otherwise.
And it only happened because my iPod battery had run down so I wasn't plugged in - I was open to the world, looking, apparently, approachable.
How many of these small connections do I miss everyday on my commute while I'm either listening to music or reading? How many opportunities do I let go by to reach out to someone else just to say good morning, or hey, nice weather we're having?
Last Sunday, while on a solo shopping trip to Trader Joe's I had a similar revelation. I was waiting for the cashier to finish ringing up my purchases and found I had an opportunity to just look around at the other shoppers, take in their faces, eavesdrop briefly on their conversations. I noticed what people were wearing, what moods they were in, how they felt about the person they were with. In that moment of zen lasting no more than a minute, my internal life just dropped away as I became an acute observer and participant in the larger community.
I know that community is always there on the periphery but so often when I'm out it's with the kids and my attention is on them: making sure they're behaving, keeping them safe, answering a seemingly endless number and variety of questions. There are days when I'm so focused on tending to my life and my brood that I wouldn't be able to tell you if I passed my best friend while hurrying down the street. No wonder we all feel so crazy and disconnected sometimes... we often are.
So I'm going to take these two occasions as a sign from the Universe that I need to turn my gaze outward. For the rest of the week I'm going to make an effort to continue to notice, to reach out, to stay fully in the stream rather than holding myself outside and apart. When I'm out in the world, I'm going to be IN it, looking at faces, saying hello, being approachable. A little experiment in awareness, if you will, to test whether a small shift in my behaviour might make some larger ripples. Maybe I'll be the one to put a smile on a fellow traveler's face with nothing more than a smile and "you ready for the workday?"
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5 comments:
Great idea! I find that walking around aware of your surroundings and with a smile in your heart is the simplist way to make the world a better place.
//There are days when I'm so focused on tending to my life and my brood that I wouldn't be able to tell you if I passed my best friend while hurrying down the street.//
Heh. *Twice* last week while sitting at stop lights I saw good friends sitting in their cars. I rollled down my window to wave, only to find that they were wrapped in their own worlds, in their car, not noticing their friend across the street.
K, this is a great resolution. I have to warn you, though, that every time I make this same optimistic decision, the very next encounter I have is with a scary psychotic person.
Last time I walked through the bus tunnel, a lady with a bag on her head rushed me.
BTW, I dig the forsythia pic. Spring in seattle has never been so vibrant.
i have to say, this is a lovely thing to post.
i have found that the greatest little joys in my life have centered around random connections with total strangers.
i also have great joy bopping along with music, but usually at home alone, or in the car on the open road, or in a place where i'm sharing it with equally boppin' humanity.
our conveniences (cells and ipods and computers and the like) seem to connect us, and in some ways they do, but in truth, they can also be the most alienating things in our lives.
real. live. people.
what a concept, w00t!
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