Stranger
Dear stranger,
We are all woven into this intricate tapestry called life. We are a speeding train that runs along a million tracks and has billions of possible track changes every millisecond. We careen thru life so fast that if we put our hand out the window we would just barely be able to brush the leaves outside the window as the wind blows our arms back with such a force that we must be persistent. We press anyway... just to touch, for a moment, the passing trees.
There is something beautiful about being awake all night when the entire world seems asleep. You can look out your window and know that everyone else is off in another place, dreaming away the darkness. You are there looking into the cold, dark night softly and dimly lit by the moon, hearing the sound of silence and smiling because it's just so serene.
Slowly the silence faded into the morning, just as outside turned from dark to a dark shade of blue, the sun seemingly trapped behind the mountains. Then in an instant there is a light, brilliant orange-yellow-pink glow on the horizon and you know it's time to start another day. It is a miracle that I get to live another day and I realize this and it makes me smile. I hear a few birds chirping, but not many since it is the dead of winter.
It was early morning, so early you could smell the dew on everything that was green outside. The sun had just lifted above the mountains making the sky that brilliant pink. Now the birds seemed to be out in full force filling the soft cold air with a melodic comforting wake up call. If I hadn't accidentally over caffeinated myself before bed last night and not been able to sleep, I wouldn't have ended up, productively, spending the night awake. I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the night, and see the miraculous sunrise or hear the birds’ song.
So, I had been looking at my window waiting for the sun to come up to go and get some drinking water from the artesian well, because I drank my last glass last night. I drove there and filled up all my jugs and started on my way home. I just so happened to take a serendipitous wrong turn and had to take an odd way home, but I figured I’d just enjoy the ride.
On the way I saw an elderly lady waiting at a bus stop, cold and with her arms tucked tight around her. At first, in passing I thought she was Muslim because she had a scarf over her head... but it turned out to be a scarf and not a hajab. I, being the random, pick up strangers type swung my car around and rolled down my passenger window to offer her a ride.
“Would you like a ride?” I asked gently, letting her know I am a normal person she can safely get in the car with.
"Where are you going?" She asked politely and in what I guessed sounded like a German accent, toned down by living in America.
"Wherever you are." I replied smiling
"I'm just going to 17th south"
"Then so am I! Hop in!" I reached over and opened her door.
She was so pretty with her hair so blonde it was almost white, elegant features and she was elderly and gentle. Her accent soothed me as we drove and spoke.
It turned out that she didn't know if she had missed the bus or not because it was supposed to come at ten after eight but it came at two after instead. So, she didn't know if her bus was early or if the bus in front of her was running late. Turns out she would have had to wait another forty minutes, in the cold, for another bus to take her where she needed to go. Either that or walk fifteen blocks in the frosty, frigid morning.
Turns out she is from Norway. Turns out my heritage and my ancestors’ home town and where her home town is in Norway and only a couple miles apart. She didn't know my family... there are a lot of Krisjaansaans or "Christiansons." She had figured out I was Norwegian and asked, because we had the same cheekbones and eye color.
It also turned out that I picked up a lady that volunteers because she would rather do that than work. She feels like she is doing more here in America if she volunteers at least as much as she works.
Before she got out of the car she took her glove off to shake my hand and say thank you. It was the perfect moment because of the way she pulled her hand out by grabbing the top of each gloved finger and sliding the perfectly eggshell white, knit glove off her elderly wrinkled fingers.
She got out of the car and was genuinely thankful for the ride. I was thankful for the smile she put on my face.
So which one of us did the good deed? Which one of us really spread love of a stranger? Was it her starting my day off with a smile, or me giving her the heat of my car and putting a smile on her face?
The world is a beautiful and intricate tapestry. It is and adventure with everything, ups, downs, goods, the bad. It unfolds perfectly according to the grand cosmic design of the universe. A single act of kindness received or given can ripple outward infinitely on the cosmic pond that touches all time; the past, the present and the future.
Your stranger,
Evan
-Jacob Grant Gabriel
Excerpt from the novella "Love Letters"
Copyright 2010
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