I traveled to Brooklyn on Saturday (and those of you in NYC know that the weekend subway schedule is always an adventure especially from the Upper East Side to Park Slope) to visit a friend who is feeling a little down.
As I left my apartment I decided to pick up some flowers - I chose sunflowers because they are her favorite. The clerk wrapped the stems and I was off. As I walked down the street to the station people looked and smiled as I passed them.
In the station a man was playing an accordian and it was kid central on the platform so he as playing children's toons. The children were dancing and having fun - one little girl walked up to me and said, "Pretty flowers, they make me smile."
The 6 train was crowded but everyone around me kept looking at the sunflowers and smiling. It was as if the flowers were a little ray of sunshine. I transferred to the R train and happily it was pretty empty. I took a seat in an empty part of the train. An elderly gentleman with a suitcase moved to sit near me. He kept looking at the flowers and final engaged me in conversation. He complimented me on the flowers said they were beautiful and then he thanked me. I told him that he was welcome but I wasn't sure for what. He chuckled and explained that he had a terrible morning. The flowers not only made him smile but they also brightened his day and inspired him - once he got home he was going go back out and buy some flowers for himself.
It reminded me that happiness can be found in the simplest things.
After the gentleman left a woman sat across from me - hipster - funky red and blonde hair eclectically dressed - she had a sketch pad and as we rode in silence I noticed that she sketched the flowers. At this point the R train got more and more crowded and I started to watch people. Everyone who noticed the flowers smiled.
In this busy busy city and how annoying the subway can be at times - hot, crowded, smelly - I enjoyed my ride to Brooklyn Saturday morning. The flowers brightened so many lives. And when I arrived to greet my friend I thought she was going to cry - they are her favorite flowers. It had been a long time since someone had given her sunflowers and even though she had had a terrible week I'm happy to say that they too brightened her day.
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2 comments:
Thank you for being such a wonderful friend.
You have always have had a gift for doing things to lift people that you care about up in life. If everyone had someone like you in their lives; well, the world would be an unbelievable place to live. More then it is already. Life is full of ups and downs. It takes a person; like yourself, to notice the little things in life and make us feel better. Thanks to a wonderful person like yourself, there are some of us that are blessed in this world to have you in ours. I love you for you...
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