Nature seeks an equilibrium and while we are all horrified and confused by the divisive, rage-filled, hard-to-understand as it depends where you read ‘the facts’ news that is out there, meanwhile, in the REAL world, people are getting kinder.
It’s almost as if we’ve all had the thought, ‘Well, this really sucks. Unless I really have to, I’m not going to add to it.’
Case in point, I visited my son up in Cinncinati this weekend, and we went in to United Dairy Farmers a gas station plus ice cream store by his apartment. We waited as they filled our five ice cream orders, and then we waited some more as no one was at the cash register. The woman came to the cash register and proceeded to help the family in front of us by coming out from the back of the counter, squatting down and making a big deal over their four year old.
‘There’s the Princess! I’ve been waiting for you! How are you, Princess? You are looking fine today!” She spent at least a minute gushing over this little unassuming girl in a casual tshirt and shorts as the little girl attempted to sink into the floor with all of these adults around her staring at her.
Then she turned to the rest of us, a good dozen plus at this point, explaining:
‘This is our little ritual. Every time she comes in the store, ever since last year when she came in wearing a Belle dress, I make a fuss. You better believe she is going to remember this. It makes her day. Makes her feel special. And that’s important. The world is hard enough, you gotta keep that good energy flowing.’
Energy. The woman said ‘energy’. I also cannot tell you the amount of times lately when I have heard mainstream people talking about energy.
And this woman was black. Everyone working at the store was black. The little girl was white. I can hear my son saying, ‘Mom, it doesn’t matter. Why are you even saying that?’
Well, because I grew up in a world where it did matter. And I’m ecstatic to hear that your world is breaking down race barriers and working towards creating a world where that doesn’t matter, but meanwhile, I grew up in a world where it did. And to see people of all skin colors going out of their way to be kind to each other, that matters to me.
All of a sudden as well, I’m noticing all of these independent stores thriving.
That makes me happy too because it is as if at the same time we reached the tipping point at deciding to be just a little more kind to each other, we also acknowledged that we don’t want to live in a world full of Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple. That the ice cream slash gas station is a really good idea, and it doesn’t matter if we had to wait quite awhile.
That they didn’t have the automatic Circle K check out but instead we all watched a little bit of hu-people-ity and thought to ourselves, “Yes, it does matter. It really does.”
Go on, catch some of the good energy and be kind to each other.
