Old Lady at Lucky’s
In line at Lucky’s this afternoon, I observed an elderly lady in front of me. Her paper thin skin and over applied matted makeup could tell tales of years of showmanship. Her lip fillers now past their prime tilted her face a bit forward. From under the platter size hat, I could scarcely see her home colored hair- pale blond. Her coca- cola bottle glasses weighed heavy on the bridge of her nose.
With a fine purse tucked securely under her arm and dawning elegant shoes, one could presume luxury at a time, in better days, in days when . . .
Today, she bore the scars of a hard life of comparison where looks and status take an unduly toll on the soul. As I stood there, fresh from the corral, dawning my own wide brim hat and prescription sunglasses, I looked for our similarities.
Ahead of my pile of olives, wine, and fresh vegetables, was her pile of olives, wine and fresh gourdes. In an effort to elicit a smile, I remark, “Well, looks like we have similar taste.” Her gaze rose from the ground to me, to our piles and pointed back at me. Tilting her head as we do when not understanding, she replied, quite eloquently, “Huh?”
“I have wine, you have wine. We both have olives and a small sundry of vegetables, of sorts.”, I quipped. Straightening her head, like we do with understanding, her misshapen lips formed a grin and she answered, “Ah yes, my father always served olives at Thanksgiving.” A sigh escapes her, her head tilts again, this time in remembrance and she continues. “We are Canadian you see and Dad always made sure to have olives on the table.” Hearing her words, but more captivated with her smile, I nod and return the beauty. I smile.
Straightening a smudge, her eyes peer at me from under her brim. “And look, we both bought Hahn wine.” With a giggle and sigh of relief I add, “We do have good taste, don’t we?”
Her turn arrives, each item is scanned, weighed and packed in a sack. All the heaviness of 3 minutes past disappeared and with her beautiful crooked smile, she turns her head, her gaze meeting mine, “Have a nice Thanksgiving week.”
The clerk gathered her bag, set it in the cart for her. As she grabbed the handle, she looked back and offered one last crooked smile. Waving, smiling, I nod. Our goodbye verbalized, and this goodbye sent from the soul. We part.
My inner experience.
My worldview compels me to find one thing with which to connect to a stranger. My goal in most interactions is to find a connection which brings hope, acceptance, joy, and ultimately a smile. We need to smile. We need the rush of dopamine we receive when we connect with another human soul. When eyes meet with a stranger, there is either acceptance or danger. One offers dopamine, the other cortisol. We live in a society addicted to cortisol. It’s quickly killing America. We live in a dopamine seeking culture, sex, drugs and fantasy. For the righteous among us, its exercise and a secret life of online addictions, “likes”, “shares” or pornography.
Offering someone a smile, a genuine smile conveying acceptance, gives them a free shot of dopamine; a fix, we desperately crave in our culture.
So I figure, why not? Why not risk a Hello? Why not risk finding similarities with someone who seems so different from us? Why not express acceptance? What do we have to lose? A small moment of embarrassment if the attempted connection fails? And so what? What do we have to gain? Five minutes of pleasantry leaves us both thinking about a nice experience at the grocery store and each reflection gives us a release of feel good hormones. Otherwise, do we all leave the store feeling invisible? For a moment, the alone individual, connected into a greater story, into the life of another and the isolation, the dark shadow which haunts us disappears and the memory, the replay of a moment or two give us an hour, an afternoon, or an evening of joy, thoughts away from the aloneness or loss which we carry always though we ask it often to stay away.
So reach out. Say Hi. Smile and see what connection is just a grin away.