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Author Topic:   The smile of a stranger, a few courtesies...
Chaitaly
Knowflake

Posts: 75
From:
Registered: Aug 2016

posted October 26, 2016 06:35 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Chaitaly     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
This morning.
A story.

So today I wake up and go to my favorite bar to have breakfast. I'm sitting at my table and this woman arrives pushing her mother in the wheelchair, but the tables are so close that she can't make room for her. So I get up and move a chair, and she thanks me more than once, and smiles at me (count: first smile).
I watch her while she takes off her mother's jacket - she struggles with her old, awkward arms - and patiently helps her to feel more comfortable in her position - she has to sit quite near the table, but not too much, and have enough room to move... "are you hot, cold, ...the jacket? let me..." - then the daughter finally sits down. A second woman joins them. The two women sit very close, the 1st butters the bread, but not for herself: she wants to feed the second woman, she approximates the bread to her mouth, the second woman at first seems to resist, she rejects the other woman's hand pushing with her own hand - all those fingers touching the butter toast, a very peculiar scene -, she resists a little, then gives in: the 1st woman's overzealous hand reaches her mouth, she wants to feed the 2nd and she couldn’t wage in this battle with more fervour, the 2nd woman's hand now accepts the offer, she doesn't leave the other’s hand, she squeezes the butter toast, takes a bite and eats.
She chews mechanically - she's just eating, not tasting - , and looks down, always at the same point in the table. The first woman's gaze - I notice - meets her gaze in that point, they speak, without staring at each other; they always look down, look down. Their stay very close to one another; their knees maybe touch under the table, they never look at the mother in the wheelchair. The old woman doesn't speak, but the two women seem to have a lot to talk about; there's a nervousness in the way they do it, they exchange their meals as if there was a due sacredness, an impatient devotion in this gesture that goes beyond the simple care.
Behind them, an old woman stops in the middle of the bar just to watch and caress a baby in a stroller and begins to talk with the mother of the child. An old man who sits at a table on the other side starts a conversation with this woman and the mother of the child, he says something about children and youth, "in the past...", moving emphatically his fingers in his face (a finger, two fingers, then he opens all his fingers, two fingers again…).
I leave. I'm going to pay my coffee, and the waitress - how kind she is! - smiles at me (count: second smile) and calls me "dear". It's the kind of courtesy that makes me want to become her friend right away, the kind of courtesy that make me realize there's a lonely place in me, in her, maybe in everyone, deep inside those 2 women and the old woman in the wheelchair that doesn't smile; my day begins with these reflections about people's loneliness and struggles, but above all... don't you feel, when strangers smile at you, that suddenly the mere randomness of everything becomes a sort of framework, and what may seem a trivial courtesy it's something you take note of... because at the end there is nothing really "ordinary", not even the simple fact that two women are sitting together at the same table and there’s something - what? displays of feelings between people - , and you have a hard time grasping it...

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juniperb
Moderator

Posts: 9729
From: Blue Star Kachina
Registered: Apr 2009

posted October 27, 2016 01:01 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for juniperb     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Lovely.

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Partial truth~the seeds of wisdom~can be found in many places...The seeds of wisdom are contained in all scriptures ever written… especially in art, music, and poetry and, above all, in Nature.

Linda Goodman

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Randall
Webmaster

Posts: 71601
From: Saturn next to Charmaine
Registered: Apr 2009

posted October 30, 2016 11:22 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

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Randall
Webmaster

Posts: 71601
From: Saturn next to Charmaine
Registered: Apr 2009

posted November 01, 2016 12:33 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I'd love to see more of your writings.

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Chaitaly
Knowflake

Posts: 75
From:
Registered: Aug 2016

posted November 02, 2016 09:37 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Chaitaly     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Randall:
I'd love to see more of your writings.

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