For this week’s quote, I feel compelled to step outside of the box and share my thoughts, rather than just do as I always do and offer a one or two sentence quote. This because I am in the midst of an amazing weekend that has left me bursting with gratitude.
As some of you know, this weekend The North Carolina Arboretum hosted their annual Orchid Show which attracts hundreds of people and fills the Education Center with an astonishing array of exquisite orchids whose beauty can take your breath away. My gosh! The colors and shapes, the smell that fills the building, the perfection in the leaves and graceful curving stems, in the flowers that seem more like art than something that grows in the ground.
With my photography on display in the same building, one floor up, I thought it would be fun to meet and chat with those visitors who ventured upstairs and so have spent my time this weekend doing just that. How wonderful! Perhaps you were one of the people I stood talking with, me sharing with you and you sharing with me. Perhaps you were one of the ones I exchanged a hug with when it came time to part, having felt that instant recognition of a kindred spirit despite our brief encounter. Talking with strangers is delightful! Every person knows so much that you don’t and maybe much that you do, but isn’t it fun to peel back the layers and open the path for discovery?
If you met me you may have noticed I have an immense passion for nature and for photography. What you may NOT KNOW is how much it means to me to learn that my photography and the quotes and writing on my labels moved you, that it touched your soul, brought tears to your eyes, showed you new ways to look at ordinary things. It has been incredibly rewarding for me to get this feedback, giving me even more joy than when I experienced the moment in the first place and captured it with my camera. It is like getting to open a gift again and again. For that, thank you; I feel blessed.
And that brings me to this week’s quote, a revelation I had more than once this weekend as I chatted with someone I’d never met before:
Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another:
“What! You too? I thought I was the only one . . .””
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
Sometimes, as we go about our daily routines, we neglect the opportunity to talk to strangers. (This makes me think of another weekly quote) We are too busy or too stressed or just never think of it, not considering that maybe this person has something in common with us or that we could learn something from her/him. I first learned the value of talking with strangers during my thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail and was reminded of it again this weekend.