“Those are really nice to eat.”

My wife and I were browsing for Christmas food gifts at a local store when I heard the sentence coming from behind me. As I turned, I was looking at a short woman of middle age, who continued expounding on her pleasure with a prior purchase of the product we were reviewing. My first inclination was to smile and move away from the display, but my conscience immediately prompted me with a similar experience that my wife and I shared back in 2014 (https://davidsplace.org/the-checkout-line/). In that experience, as I described in my blog entry, I feel that I had failed to grasp the significance and had not embraced the spontaneous conversation. So, in this new opportunity, I realized that a departure is the last thing I should attempt.

In this repeat of that earlier encounter, my dear wife and I entered the conversation as though we were old friends, sharing the experience of Christmas, and the pleasure of memories from gifts such as this. To expand the conversation, I located similar products for the three of us to assess and compare. Was it serious? Did it resolve any personal problems? Was it an emotional experience? No, but the conversation brought smiles to us all. It was a moment of serendipity, a moment to remember, a moment that created memories in an otherwise minor shopping trip.

Sharing one’s feelings and preferences with strangers requires confidence and innocence, a combination rarely found. And certainly not found within me. To be singled out for conversation among friends is a natural process, but when the event is generated by a stranger, one must reflect on what sparked the encounter. Shoppers milling around us had typical stone faces, allowing no sense of emotion to appear, and ignoring all others as they pursued their shopping preferences. Yet, here among our small group, life was an oasis of friendship, a sharing of happiness and Christmas memories.

Was there a time in the past when such encounters with strangers were commonplace? I would like to say that there was, but I believe not. Although we routinely speak of love for all others, we do not express it or experience it or believe it, other than to tolerate their existence. We tell our children that we are all God’s children, that we are all crew members on spaceship Earth, but it’s all a dream. Other than brief encounters, such as I write here about, we are all cave dwellers, people who avoid and hide and develop and promote prejudice. Maybe our goal should be to admit this failing and work on fixing it. But I dream.