Jospeh and Greg

Taking a few moments to talk with or listen to another human being can change your day in the most magnificent way possible.  I had the privilege of meeting and speaking with two incredible individuals last week and I wish to share these two encounters with you.
The first occured on the Metro, on my way home to be with my beautiful baby boy.  A grey-haired man wearing a grey and yellow wind-breaker stepped on and uncerimoniously sat down next me, and I smiled as he did so.  As my Ipod blared an old Nelly Furtado song in my ears, I noticed that this man was still glancing my way, so I quickly pressed pause and grinned back.  Our converstaion began with his asking if I was going to work, and it unfolded into my talking about Zach and asking him a few questions to which he answered child-like and innocently;  pretty soon, I was showing him a picture of Zach and he sweetly asked me if I would take his picture, which I did and have kept on my phone.  As my station was approaching, he gallantly told me that I was as pretty as a flower and that I had a beautiful smile, to which I responded with two quick kisses on both his scratchy beard-covered cheeks before happily trotting off the Metro.
The second occurred at the corner of Peel and Ste. Catherine, when I heard the notes of a guitar being plucked by yet another grey-haired but this time, bandanna-clad man, sitting on a tiny stool with his guitar poised on his knees.  I decided to stop and listen, singing along to the songs I know, and he acquiesced to my request of Joe Cocker's A Little Help from my Friends.  We chatted a bit about love, his blue eyes twinkling as he charmingly flirted with me, a young woman half his age, while he confessed that young women are not interested in him while old women his age are too serious for his young and childish heart.  We chatted about life, and money and sang a few more songs together before we formally introduced ourselves and I gave him a big bear hug.  Then, I made my way to the Metro while he also went on his merry way, his guitar slung on his shoulder and his little seat resting in the crook of his arm.
What binds all of us together, our commonality, is that we are all human, no matter what nationality, culture, religion, social status, gender or age... and this fact is so easy to forget as we go about our daily business and we become obsessed with what we think we need and deserve. 

Smiling at Strangers

In this individualistic world in which everyone's eyes stare down at the cigarette-butt littered and gum-splattered sidewalks and only furtively glance up so as not to run into a person or object, as they impatiently and hurriedly make their way to the various obligations awaiting them, where are the humanitarian gazes?
Smiling at someone as the individual passes you by is completely free, only takes a moment, and will perhaps make his or her day better.  So why isn't everyone offering this free and magnificent gift to anyone who strolls passed them?
Moreover, why is a person SO surprised when a grin is offered to them?  An initial look of shock flashes through the stranger's facial features until, if you are lucky, a reflective smirk robs their lips of its initial grimace.
Thus, I say cross the self-imposed barriers people have erected in front of themselves and be the first to make a human contact with another human being... see what happens... might make YOU feel better as well.