The Kindness Of Strangers

 

The Kindness of Strangers! Ahhh, yes, the kindness of strangers. Until I moved down here that was just a clever little rhetorical line uttered by Blanche Dubois to bounce around when one wanted to appeal to a friend for an obscure favor. But here, the kindness of strangers has a completely different status.

Here, people who do not know you and are not seeking any favor, obscure or otherwise, come to your rescue unexpectedly. Hands full, can’t grab the door handle; suddenly a generous smile has the door open, while you mumble a very foreign, ‘thanks’.  Friendly hands guide you into a tight parking spot, rather you sought assistance or not. A wondered out loud comment sends you off in the direction of a store, a product, or object you really could not locate; often with a wonderful story to share with someone else. Need a good doctor or dentist, count on the person at your swim class or post office to know the perfect person, who calmed their dentist challenged nerves.

Now this may not seem like a phenomenon to you who claim this as your birthright, but to me, a stranger in a strange land, and coming from a land where everything but a neon sign flashes never, ever, ever, ever interact with strangers for any reason at any time; these little acts of kindness have gone far to make the almost insurmountable mountains of daily living into molehills of the mundane.

But it goes farther and deeper than that. These “random acts of kindness” invade the Grinch zones of your heart and almost before you have realized it, or have formally addressed it, you have become acclimated to proffering a hand, or, delivering a genuine smile along with some simple information. Then, presto-change-o you are feeling like a nicer, more trusting and approachable person overall.

No, I still will not leave my car keys in the ignition to dash over to the mailbox, nor will I leave my cell phone in plain sight while parked. But I will however strike up a conversation while waiting in line, share information about something wonderful, return a shopping cart for the lady with the two small kids and help an elder into her car with her bags because, now, I do respect and reciprocate the kindness of strangers.

These are the musings of my straddling the Mason/Dixon Line, and while they might draw ire and criticism or laughter, you can easily find me.

I will be sitting, in the meantime, on the Crown Stone.

Though historically the Mason/Dixon Line is the demarcation of the Eastern part of the United States that would remain  free states and the Southern part of the United States that would be slave states, in popular culture the Mason/Dixon line is that empirical boundary that separates the North from the South and for my soul stirrings, from the West as well.

Crown Stones are markers placed at every fifth mile of the Mason Dixon Line bearing the family coat of arms of the state it faced.