Postscript: Loving Strangers

Postscript: Loving Strangers
By Carrie Classon | Contributor | November 2025

This sounds a little silly. Maybe it sounds like a variation of practicing gratitude and I suppose it is but I made a point of looking at every stranger who caught my attention and finding something to love about that person.

The woman in front of me had gorgeous curly hair. The older woman across from me wore stylish jeans with buttons running up the ankles. A young woman tenderly cared for her mother in a wheelchair on a trip that must have exhausted them both. A young father cared for a fussy baby, bouncing him gently until the baby fell asleep in his arms. My heart hurt for the larger person who had to purchase two seats. He kept his eyes down as passengers filed past him and I thought how the simplest thing for me was so much more challenging for him.

Everywhere, I saw worry in the eyes of my fellow travelers. There are, after all, so many things to worry about when you travel. Where is my gate? When do I board? Will there be a place for my luggage? Have I forgotten something? Lost anything? And this is all before the meeting they are going to, the relatives they are visiting, the reason for the travel, which might very well be stressful in and of itself.

I tried to practice love for them all. I suspected that the young person on the floor wearing headphones oblivious to the people stepping over their possessions had a rich interior life. I smiled at the round woman sitting at the bar, dressed entirely in red, drinking a cocktail. I would never tell her so, but she looked like a very happy tomato (and I really do mean that in a nice way). I felt bad for the barista at the coffee shop who spilled the drink she was making not once but twice.

“I hope you get a break soon,” I told her.

“I go home smelling like coffee and donuts!” she told me.

“There are worse smells,” I said. She smiled.

My practice continued when I got to New York, but instead of keeping these thoughts to myself, I shared a few of them aloud. An older woman was dressed in a sparkly skirt. “You are beautiful, standing in the sunshine!” I told her.

She told me she used to be a singer. I told her I could tell. Quite unexpectedly, she opened her arms and gave me a huge hug.

I stood there on the corner of 42nd Street, a total stranger hugging me in the sunshine, and I felt loved by strangers.

Till next time.

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Postscript: Levitating cats, learned helplessness, and 10 years of marriage (April 2025)
Postscript: Circling friendships and my 100-year-old grandmother (March 2025)
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