Something Different

Living in a different country than the one I was raised in gives me a heightened awareness of the things happening around me.  I notice what is the same and what is different, how what is different can usually be connected with what is familiar in some way.  

We've all had the experience of passing the homeless or down-and-out person on the street.  If you're from the southeastern United States like I am, it's probably been in your car.  If you're in a city it's outside a subway or on a crowded street.  We all struggle to know what to do in those situations and respond differently depending on how prepared we are or in how much of a hurry.  Sometimes we give money or pray for them as we go by.  In Alabama you might give them a bottle of water and a burger, a Coca-cola.  In Paris you often see such a person with a baguette and a bottle of wine.  

There's a man who sits outside our local supermarket.  He's nearly always there when I go inside.  I don't know his story, but I see him sit, and I watch people be kind, stopping to pass the time of day in a language I only understand the smallest fraction of.  Small towns are like that all over the world, I guess.  People slow down and care for one another.  

Some days I see a smattering of coins around him, sometimes that ever-present baguette or other food offering.  But one day as I was leaving the supermarket I noticed something I'd never noticed before in a situation like this.  There he sat, a fixture in this small town, surrounded by small houseplants and flowers.  I don't know who first left an offering of beauty, but for this day on the pavement there were flowers, bright spots of color on a grey day.