STRANGERS MATTER

 

STRANGERS MATTER 

If there’s one truth I’m carrying over from 2023 to 2024, it’s this: strangers matter.  How we are in the lives of strangers can have far reaching ripples on any given day. We literally have the power to make a bad day worse or better for a total stranger in a few seconds.  I know, it sounds corny, but it’s true. 

I’m thinking of three events I experienced in the past few months.

The first was at Trader Joe’s in Escondido.  Usually I love shopping at that store, but I was tired and a bit down.  My husband and I had just heard that our homeowners insurance was being cancelled because of fire risk.  The Santa Ana winds had been relentless for weeks and my allergies were acting up, causing a long bout of coughing and asthma and a recent trip to urgent care. 

Everything about the shopping trip was overwhelming.  Finding a parking spot. Walking from my car to the store without getting run over.  Discovering (again) that I’d mistakenly put my groceries in someone else’s cart.  This is something that only seems to happen at Trader Joe's. Discovering that the cheeses had been moved to the opposite end of the store.  Again, something that only happens at Trader Joe’s.  By the time I’d checked out and wheeled my groceries all the way back to my car at the far end of the parking lot I was very tired. Now I’d have to walk my cart all the way back to the front of the parking lot to the place you park your carts. It was all just too much.  If there’d been a place to dump my cart by my car I would have, but there wasn’t.  Just then, a young woman who'd just parked her car walked up to me. 

“I’d be happy to take your cart back for you, if you’d like,” she offered.  

“Really?” I said.  

“Of course! It’s no trouble. I’m going that way anyway.” 

She took it from me and I thanked her and climbed into my car, feeling lighter and happier than I had in hours.  

It made a difference.  

Just that.  

She saw me.  

She cared.  

She helped. 

The next event took place in the drop off/donations lane in the parking lot at Goodwill.  

While I waited my turn for the person in the car in front of me to unload his bags and hand them to the man who was accepting donations, I noticed a few things.  The person handing over his donations was in a hurry. The man accepting the donations looked to be in his sixties or seventies, tall and stooped, huddled in a hoodie that he had pulled down far over his face. My window was open so I could hear no words of thanks or an exchange of any kind between them. I felt a familiar ache, the feeling I get when someone who is serving someone else is treated as less than or worse, invisible.  

When it was my turn I got out my car and said good morning to the man.  He didn’t reply.  

I opened my trunk, took out a box and handed it to him.  

As he took it, I said, “Thank you, sir.”  

He looked at me then.  

“You’re welcome,” he replied.  

Was his accent from Africa?

I don’t remember what I said next, probably something about the weather, but he replied and this time I could hear he was definitely from Africa. 

“Do you mind if I ask you where you’re from?” I said. 

“I come from South Sudan,” he answered.  “And I hear you have an accent too.”

He reached up and took off his hood.  

I told him I was from South Africa and that I had friends from South Sudan. 

We talked a bit, laughed a bit, then it was time to drive on as there was another car waiting to unload their stuff. 

“It was good to meet you,” I said.  “I think I’ll go inside and browse a while now.”  

“Good to meet you too.  It must be nice to have the time to browse,” he said.  “I haven’t browsed anywhere for a long time.”  

There was no bitterness in his voice; he was just stating a fact of life for him.  

How easy it is to forget what a luxury it is to have a car, to have extra clothes and dishes to donate, and to meander around a store purely for pleasure. 

After I parked I looked back and saw he was talking to the next person handing him a bag of donations.  And he hadn’t pulled his hoodie back over his head.  

 

Sometimes strangers come to your rescue, sometimes you come to theirs, and sometimes we impact each other in the most surprising ways.  

A few weeks ago, my husband and I took our one–year-old grandson to the park to play and have a picnic. I’m a big fan of picnics in the park and we’re always looking for big stretches of grass where our grandchildren can run wild.  We set out our  blanket, the diaper bag and a couple of toy dump trucks.  

Besides us, there were only three other people gathered under an oak tree a few picnic tables away.  Two women and a man, probably in their sixties.  The women looked like they’d stepped out of a Patricia Polacco children’s picture book, with loose, comfortable pants and shirts and colorful scarves tied around their heads.  I wondered if they were Czechoslovakian or Ukrainian, but I had no idea.  While the man read the newspaper the women engaged in a very loud, animated discussion in a language I didn’t recognize.  Back and forth they went, gesticulating, sometimes talking over each other.  There was something about them I liked and admired.  

For the next while I forgot about them and hung out with Norman and Landon, chasing, laughing, getting handfuls of leaves and twigs dumped in my lap.  

Then suddenly the sound of loud dance music filled the air.  The man was still reading the paper but the two women were doing an exercise routine to the music.  Bending and stretching up to one side and then the other.  Then it got even better.  Their exercises morphed into the most unusual and joyful dancing I’ve ever seen.  They linked arms and twirled around.  They did Macarena moves.  It was irresistible. I picked Landon up and we danced to their music too.  The whole time they were completely unselfconscious and oblivious to our presence.  

Then one of the women turned off the boom box and they proceeded to take out their lunch along with a huge thermos of what I assumed was strong, hot tea. I also assumed they'd brought buttery cookies to go with the tea. The three of us ate our lunch too, then went about our playing and chasing and laughing and diaper changing.  

Eventually the three of them packed up their stuff and walked to their car. I was sorry to see them leave but their enthusiasm and unique way of being in this world was contagious. The images of the twirling scarved ladies stayed with me all day –  in fact, it’s been weeks and they’re with me still, reminding me of what’s possible on any given day. 

                                                

Credits:

Ilustration by Patricia Polacco 

Coffee and Thrift Store Mug sold by BeanMugs on Etsy