Walking down to Trader Joe’s this morning, it felt great just being outside. There was a spring in my step and I felt this deep sense of connection with the present moment and the world around me. And I wondered for a second if the slight smirk on my face would make me seem like a weirdo, but I didn’t care.
Then something amazing happened midway that’s still blowing my mind…
There was this homeless woman, she looked middle-aged, and she was walking toward me on the other side of an intersection cussing at everything and nothing. I heard her before I saw her.
So we both arrived at the intersection on opposite sides of the street. Me standing in the shade of the traffic light, and her still cussing and yelling at the air.
And a thought crossed my mind, “How do I send some love and help ease her pain?” And I shit you not, almost as soon as the thought finished forming, she went silent.
Now, on the inside, I was amazed, excited, and almost in disbelief, but on the outside, I played it cool af just looking at a tree over to the left of her. Nothing to see over here. I didn’t just flood you with love somehow.
The effect was too obvious to dismiss because as soon as she went silent, it seemed like she looked right at me. I don’t know for sure because I didn’t want to engage eye contact and potentially trigger her, but she definitely looked in my direction for several seconds.
And that was that, the light turned green for us and I crossed the street while subtly watching her just standing there with her eyes drifting closed. Still quiet. Looking a million times less angry. Her brows relaxed and unfurrowed.
And I just kept going on my way…
Mind. Blown.
I don’t really know what more to say about it, other than it was incredible and makes me super curious to dive deeper into developing this.
Witnessing what happened between us skyrocketed the already good feeling I had inside, and everyone I interacted with afterwards was friendly or pleasant…my cashier even went from chatting casually with her bagger before she started ringing me up to laughing pretty hard about something ridiculous while I was standing there paying for my stuff, and she kept laughing about it as I walked away.
It made me feel even more joy.
The whole experience was kind of surreal.
