A while back I posted a poem by Tom Absher in which he wrote "When I walk in the village these days I have taken to putting my hands in the hands of beggars -and secretly I bless the strangers I come across."
I have a sort of love of strangers these days myself. There's something about the complete spontaneity and anonymity of meeting and interacting with completely unexpected people for very brief periods of time that has a certain beauty to it. It's something I recognized a while ago and I continue to notice it every time I'm out doing anything. I have no expectations that these things will occur or what shape they may take and I think that is one of my favorite parts of it. I love to meet people who seem very sensitive to me for 78 seconds and then are gone -never to disappoint me by having a bad day. That's not to say I don't love the experiences I have of my long time friends but as someone who was once very shy I am still surprised by how amazing it is to connect with someone briefly that way and I love the freedom of that anonymity. If anything in the world has kept me hopeful for the past five years it is all the people I've met whose names I do not know and who I will never see again.