THE POSTSCRIPT, Carrie Classon
Traveling is inherently annoying. Even if I travel light, I have a heavy handbag, my suitcase catches on the curb, my laptop flops against my hip. Everything takes three times more energy than it seems like it should.
Once I get to the airport, there are more annoyances. People walk slowly, three abreast, oblivious to the fact that they are not moving at the prevailing speed. Everyone takes too much carry-on luggage. People talk too loudly on their cellphones. Younger people sit on the floor and spread all their possessions around them, as if they plan to take up permanent residence in the airport waiting area.
I could feel myself starting to get annoyed as I entered the airport on this trip, and I really didn’t want to be that way. I didn’t want to be that grouchy person. And so, I wasn’t. I played a game that involved finding something to love.
This sounds a little silly. Maybe it sounds like a variation of practicing gratitude — and I suppose it is. But I made a point of looking at every stranger who caught my attention and finding something to love about that person.
The woman in front of me had gorgeous curly hair. The older woman across from me was wearing stylish jeans with buttons running up the ankles. A young woman was tenderly caring for her mother in a wheelchair on a trip that must have exhausted them both. A young father was caring for a fussy baby, bouncing him gently until the baby fell asleep in his arms. My heart hurt for the larger person who had to purchase two seats. He kept his eyes down as the passengers filed past him, and I thought how the simplest thing for me was so much more challenging for him.
And everywhere, I saw worry in the eyes of my fellow travelers. There are, after all, so many things to worry about when you travel. Where is my gate? When do I board? Will there be a place for my luggage? Have I forgotten something? Lost anything? And this is all before the meeting they are going to, the relatives they are visiting, the reason for the travel — which might very well be stressful in and of itself.
I tried to practice love for them all. I suspected the young person on the floor wearing headphones — oblivious to the people stepping over their possessions — had a rich interior life. I smiled at the round woman sitting at the bar, dressed entirely in red, drinking a cocktail. I would never tell her so, but she looked like a very happy tomato (and I really do mean that in a nice way)! I felt so bad for the server at the coffee shop who spilled the drink she was making not once, but twice.
“I hope you get a break soon,” I told her.
“I go home smelling like coffee and donuts!” she told me.
“There are worse smells,” I said. She smiled.
My practice continued when I got to New York, but instead of keeping these thoughts to myself, I shared a few of them aloud. An older woman was dressed in a sparkly skirt. “You are beautiful, standing in the sunshine!” I told her.
She told me she used to be a singer. I told her I could tell. Quite unexpectedly, she opened her arms and gave me a huge hug.
I stood there on the corner of 42nd Street, a total stranger hugging me in the sunshine, and I felt loved by strangers.
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