The Forgotten Pleasure of Interacting With Strangers

These temporary people in your life bring meaning.

Some of the greatest and most unusual moments of my life have been with people I don’t know.

I’ve had strangers cheerfully give me directions in foreign countries and my own, help me get up when I fell after tripping on a curb and warn me on the Paris metro that my money was about to fall out of my pocket.

Strangers on an aeroplane have offered me chocolate they just bought in Switzerland, strangers have given me advice on what kind of flowers to buy and the best fish I should cook tonight and how to do it.

Last year a woman walked up to me in the grocery store and told me how much she loved my curly hair and gorgeous coat and told me I was beautiful. I had to blink fast to keep the tears back. I thanked her and floated over to the meat department. (Boy, did I ever need that as my hair was just starting to grow out from chemo and I felt like the ugly duckling.)

Strangers have fixed the flat tire on my car on a lonely stretch of highway; offered me their tickets to see the Empire State building as they were running late to see a play, and someone once took a dragonfly pin I’d admired off her shoulder and gave it to me. I tried to give it back to her and she said, “No, you were meant to have it.”

I’ve always helped strangers, too. Maybe because I grew up in a village of 100 people and received so much kindness from others. Lovely old men taught me about poetry and classical books and lovely old ladies would mention they’d seen my poems in the local paper.

I smile at people in the grocery line-up and ask what they’re cooking tonight with all their unique ingredients in the shopping cart. If I think someone has a stylish haircut or nice earrings or their jacket is snappy — I tell them. If you’re thinking a kind thought about someone, you should share it with them. It might make their day.

I’ve held a young stranger’s hand who was seated beside me on a plane when he told me his father had just died. The boy was 15 years old and flying to his dad’s funeral. The pain in his blue eyes is something I’ll never forget.

My husband and I helped save a woman’s life after she had run onto the highway in front of a semi-truck. My husband is a former paramedic and with the help of four other strangers we took care of the woman on the highway while we waited for the ambulance.

My hands and arms were covered with her blood but I held her hand and leaned close so she could see my eyes. I spoke calmly to her with a smile and poured all the love I could send to her with my words and eyes and touch.

I’ll never know if she survived but my husband felt that she would, and in my heart, I felt that she would too.

Most kindnesses with strangers aren’t that large and dramatic — but they are all important.

Last year I wanted to try roasting chestnuts at Christmas but I had no idea how to do it. I went to our local Italian market and I stood by the huge bin filled with chestnuts. An elderly Italian woman and her husband were carefully looking at one chestnut at a time, and they certainly looked like they knew what they were doing.

I asked them, “Are they good?”

I told them about the one time I’d tried a roasted chestnut and how horrible it had tasted. “No — it was rotten! Chestnuts should be sweet once they are roasted,” the woman said in her lovely accent.

They went through the bin and thoughtfully checked each chestnut, told me what they’d looked for and then put them in a bag. She showed me how to carve an X into one side with a knife so they didn’t explode in the oven. And did I mention how she bit one to show me what the chestnut flesh looked like?

And then they gave me that bag and wished me luck. It was a sweet ten-minute exchange that I still remember and we were all better for it.

The Forgotten Joy of Speaking With Strangers

Every single person you know and love now who isn’t a family member was, at first, a stranger. Now that’s a strange thought, isn’t it? It’s one of those weird truths we never think about.

Here’s something shocking. You’re a stranger to others too. You’re potentially the boogeyman, the rude one, the unkind one, the one who flips them the road-rage finger, or the one who will steal or hurt.

I don’t believe that to be true for you or most of us. So why live like the majority of people are bad? They aren’t. Because you aren’t and you’re a stranger too.

People feel more and more isolated today. They don’t know their neighbours and make no effort to get to know them. Children are educated on ‘Stranger Danger’ — which makes me sad since most of the time it isn’t the stranger they need to be wary of.

People are rude to strangers and then expect people to be civil back to them. It gets complicated. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

I’ve shared a look, a laugh, a smile and sometimes tears with people I didn’t know and will never see again.

And for all of those thousands of fleeting moments with strangers — how many do I remember and does it matter that I remember? Or is the important thing to have been in the moment while it happened?

I think if you knew and remembered every kindness that has been given to you by strangers, your head would pop off.

In the famous Paris bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, above a rickety booklined door are the words:

‘Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise.’

When I first saw this sign — I instantly fell in love with the phrase.

I see it as a civility to my fellow humans. We all do live in the same house, after all.

My sister and I were kids — shopping for birthday gifts for our mom in a small store. Our dad was looking at something so we took our two little cat and dog ornaments to the cashier. I dumped the change we’d saved in my Snoopy wallet in front of her. I was proud of that little pile.

She smiled and counted it up and told me I was a dollar short. I was mortified. I started frantically looking around for my dad, but the teenager behind me in the line-up reached over and gave a dollar to the cashier.

He said, “I’d like to help with that.” His girlfriend smiled at him and squeezed his arm.

My sister and I thanked him and we took our figurines and found Dad. We told him what happened and he looked for the young man to pay him back — but he had left.

I’ve never forgotten his kindness. It was only a dollar for him, but it meant everything to me in that embarrassing moment.

And that’s really how this whole comfort of strangers works. Unexpected moments with unexpected people enrich your life and mine every day of our lives.

Dear beautiful, kind, and loving strangers, thank you so much for what you bring to my life.

Thanks for reading! I have loads of food essays (delicious recipes too) and thoughtful and quirky simpler living essays waiting for you. (Well over 100 of them!) And this story caught the attention of NBC News in New York!

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