never talk to strangers, get to know them

As I walked the unfamiliar streets of Arlington, MA today I crossed paths with a 12-week old yellow lab named Leo and his human parent, Pat. Pat retired from a life in the produce business four months after his 65th birthday. That was just over 5 years ago. He looked remarkably youthful for a 70 year old. His warm brown eyes held my own, his hair shorn neatly to his scalp and his body fit and awake, simultaneously still and responsive. I would have accepted an invitation to come into his fenced yard and sit and share stories had he extended one. I believe he yielded to social norms and kept his invitation within his mind and heart. Nonetheless I felt pulled in and I likely made myself uncomfortable with my extending a casual “hello” from a passerby to the untracked minutes that passed between us over the fence, he and Leo in their yard, me out on the sidewalk.

I felt so enlivened after our interaction. Not for the first time I felt the stirring in me that I fall so readily into people – mesmerized by their humanness and delighted by their willingness to meet me. I don’t know whether I use the phrase “falling into love” within the conventional parameters but that’s my experience. I feel “moved”, stirred, and altered. I recognize each interaction as fleeting and that doesn’t bother me. It’s not about “collecting” people, for me it’s about being changed through our connection.

I considered my long and consistent history of moving from one locale to another and for the first time I began to consider the gift of my past – I have generally fallen into a common judgment that without a sense of geographical rootedness I somehow was a damaged being. But walking away from my time with Pat and Leo today I felt a visceral recognition that the quality of my interactions with people is determined by my presence in the moment rather than the duration of our time together.

The thought that resonated through my mind yesterday was that appreciation is the remedy for attachment; if I can appreciate what I am living and experiencing right now there is no desire for more. In fact, my desire to have and to hold dissolves any possibility of receiving what is so breathtakingly beautiful. Gratitude fills up any available space within me and makes it impossible for attachment to take root. Today I am cycling through the mystery with more grace and less fear.