I was hooked!
Dork that I was, never occurred to me until the other week that maybe there was a connected website. Hit the mother lode of stories!
My client is long gone, but my pleasure in reading I Believe essays is stronger than ever.
The essay I shared today with my Facebook friends - Finding My Father in a Small World - was written by a daughter of a man who lived with a "What a small world!" view of life. To his daughter, it seemed like he could find a connection with anyone - "our widowed German landlady, the Japanese grandmother who watched us a few days a week, the guy in line next to him for the bathroom."
My own Mom & Dad were both that way, as am I. Was brought up with an immense interest in other people. How many times will friends say to me, "Do you know that person?" after I've exchanged a few remarks with someone. More often than not, the answer is, "Just met him!" I just am head-over-heels interested in people!
The other day, I had an older friend with me as I picked up a grannie client at her senior living residence. As the three of us strolled from the entrance to our car, I noticed a woman pulling up in a beautiful champagne-colored mini-van. What delight to notice how the figured print of her black blouse matched the color of the car!
S l o w i n g my pace with client & friend, I managed to take long enough getting them settled in my car so that she was getting out of hers - one car over - just as I walked to the front of mine, giving me the opportunity to pop over & ask, "Do you always coordinate your outfits with your car?" Realizing my comment was spot on, she broke into a peal of laughter & joined in the fun with, "I take it up in a car elevator whenever I dress."
"Who is that woman?" both friends asked as I settled into the driver's seat. "I have no idea," I answered. They smiled & shook their heads.
The three of us enjoyed a delightful dinner together, then headed over to a very special concert. I dropped the ladies off & went to park the car. Entering the intimate concert hall, I looked around for my friends. My grannie client had saved me a place, but the other friend.... Where was she?
Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather! She was sitting next to a exquisitely coifed head of snowy white hair wearing an elegant black blouse with a champagne-colored print. Not possible! I scootled over to where she was sitting & said, "Who would have thunk it?" We grinned & laughed & she said I'd made her day with my earlier comment. And my heart was touched when it turned out she was the wife of Dad's physician, a woman I knew lightly but hadn't seen in decades.
Walking back to my seat, still grinning, a male friend caught my hand in his and, smiling, said, "You own the room."
From him, someone whose observations i value, it was a comment I gave some thought. What Neil experienced as me "owning" the room was me embracing it. Life is meant to be embraced. That is something I know from my nature, something reinforced by my parents' nurture & my husband's agreement.
It's a small world, and we have a small amount of time in it. I learned that lesson at seven years old, when a brother suddenly died. Make the most of it, SEE it, share it.
It's impossible to remember when I first made those beliefs my own. Always? Quite possibly.
Where some people see our separations, my attention is drawn to our common existence on this planet of ours. It IS a small world. And it got even smaller when it turned out that the woman seated next to the Champagne Lady was none other than a dear friend I hadn't recognized (she is a bit frailer than the last time we saw each other at Bryn Athyn Post Office), someone who lives physically near yet "outside" of my hometown. AND it turned that that she is a friend of my grannie client, who is now more convinced than ever that I know every person on earth!
Well, I don't - but I am interested in them.
The fact of the matter is that I will always be like the essayist's father, opening up conversations with strangers, probing for details to bring us closer together, for some shared history or unexpected connection.
My hope is to some day be more like her Dad, not intimated by boundaries, borders, or new experiences, making companions of strangers "whether sitting at a bus stop, climbing mountains, or crossing oceans." Because I was so rootless for so long, I want to entwine my roots with others, sharing the inborn drive "to connect with one another, to discover we are more alike than at first glance and to find the familiar in this small world."
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