Of Faces and Places In the Heart

My favorite past time of all is people watching. I have always been intrigued by people and their facial reactions, how they walk and talk and carry themselves.  I simply enjoy watching people.

Everyone, I mean everyone, has attributes that are lovely.  I find them. Sometimes, it’s their beautiful hair, their smile, it may be their whole package; how they are wrapped before us, the world, as they pass by us in a single millisecond of time.

There are times and places that we find along our travels where things rest peacefully in our hearts, simply waiting for that someday when they’ll jump right out of our chests and into the world for all to see. To be then on the witnessing end firsthand is to be graced by something I think very special.

Here then standing at an arrival gate in an international airport, I find such special things. Here, people watchers such as myself, rejoice. So much to see, there are so many lives walking by intersecting, touching, not physically; perhaps metaphysically. There are so many differences that they become the same or similar and at least commonalities.

Here, right here in this airport are many hearts slowly leaking, seeping, jumping and leaping out of their chests! We are unlike faces, we are unlike languages but we are alike in smiles and heartfelt touches of humanity.

Hearts that are seen leaping happen in the recognition of one’s family, distant relatives, and long -time friends. Each person filing off flights with hugs awaiting them burst as happiness fills their faces. It is uncanny how suddenly all of those unlike faces become more alike than ever and how this is so immediate. Eyes finding eyes and smiles finding smiles, filling full the faces of the tired and weary, the young and tiny, the ensconced elder in the wheelchair, the saddened, even if just briefly, smiling with their hearts leaping!

Some will receive balloons, flowers, and hugs. There are the lovelorn whose hugs are tight and lips are locked, with tears of joy leaping with their hearts. Those full-kisses have the power of missed weeks, months or even years to be immediately wiped away with new lives started or restarted and love rekindled or just started.

Let it be known, that in this place I stand, all those attributes we all have that I have witnessed firsthand, that they meld into each other and that the lovely I found before still exists only now as my own daughter comes out the arrival door and we see each other’s eyes, I can only hope that someone just witnessed a millisecond of my life as my heart leaps from my chest!

Just my thoughts, just my opinions, and always in a ConversationalTone!