List the people you admire and look to for advice…
My actual list of admired people that I would go to for advice, specific to me, is subject to a strict Non Disclosure Agreement with myself.
They know who they are.
But I am an advice and knowledge junkie and will take advice or knowledge from anyone, admired or not if advice or wisdom is needed.
Unsolicited advice though, is not my thing. Just about tolerable if given with love or care but most of it just rinses off, unrequired, unrequested and unneeded. Selected deafness can be a superpower.
So can a killer sentence.
“That is really interesting, but I am afraid I am not interested”
Maybe just as a thought bubble or a quote on a T-Shirt. I will leave that to your own discretion.
Describe a random encounter with a stranger that stuck out positively to you.
Not a chance that I could pick just one random encounter with a stranger. I have a ‘stranger’ face. An invisible tattoo on my forehead that says “Talk to me ‘
My family and friends can see a random encounter as it approaches, they melt away and feign deep interest in things some distance away. Leaving me alone. I like to think they are a safe distance away.
Not all strangers are strange, many have been lovely. How do I even define ‘positive’ to encounters with strangers. Mostly they are benign.The few that have turned out not so well have been escapable.
Last weekend’s random encounter was with a holidaymaker moving into his Airbnb which was over a Vegan cafe. I am no expert on Veganism or the etiquette of holidaying above a Vegan Cafe. But my ‘ Stranger-magnet’ face marked me out as the woman to discuss his moral dilemma with. Should he put his honey-flavoured yogurt in the fridge as the bees would most certainly have been trafficked. Looking at his box of groceries, dairy goods and bacon, trafficked bees seemed to be the least of his problems. Wisdom and past experience made me cautious* Luckily the yogurt was Greek. There was zero chance that the honey in the yogurt was from wild bees living in an Olive Grove but that was what I focussed on while reassuring him that his holiday food would not cause a crisis in the North Cornwall Vegan community
* I am cautious because one of my stranger encounters was with a 90-year-old man who was mourning his wife, and their inability to have children. On a windswept cliff, in an attempt to move the conversation on, I asked him how they knew it was her who could not have children. ( This sounds wrong on many levels but not as wrong as it might seem. It was a second marriage I suppose I was hoping there was a child from his first marriage)
His sobbing stopped and he turned his reddened, rheumy old eyes to me and asked what I meant. I explained that men can also be infertile.
He looked bewildered and then sad again. They had just accepted and had never been tested. All I had managed to achieve was adding doubt to his long-held narrative. Not my finest hour.
We are all made of stories. I’ve always known this but seeing a neon sign saying exactly that makes the notion seem less of an abstract thought. I would like to add something else to the statement.
In my previous career, talking to people was an add on. Medical Imaging requires loads of technical skills. Being ‘good’ with patients and colleagues is valuable but secondary to the main task. Being a gallery guide in a museum is the exact opposite, my art knowledge is a secondary skill to that of engaging, or not *, with people as they move around the space. Talking to people you don’t actually know is an adventure that can take you down the dullest cul-de-sac, or onto a thought provoking moment. Even if the interaction isn’t the most positive conversation you have ever had, there is often something to be gained from it. We should all be grateful our thought bubbles remain our own private dialogue.
Thankfully I’m able to dump all the bad or negative interactions I’ve had with strangers in a pile that rarely troubles me. The good ones can be transient or live long in my thoughts. Sometimes with regret that they couldn’t have gone on for longer or had sequels. But mostly they become another one of the stories that I am made of, even if they are a teeny tiny piece of my own jigsaw. They also are, however briefly, a part of my journey.
Talking to strangers is life enhancing.
* Sometimes not talking to someone is a positive act, reading body language and judging the right time to not talk is also a great communication tool.
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