The Beautiful Intuition of a Stranger
I love going to the bank.
People who work at the bank have got to be some of the most friendly people I’ve ever spoken with.
I’m a friendly person too, when I’m being myself. And today, I was.
The teller and I were chatting and laughing away as she ran my cheques through the system. (If you treat your tellers like human beings, banking can be this comfortable.)
Suddenly she stopped me, and said, with an accent “You’re a student, aren’t you?”
I said that I was, but didn’t bother to ask how she knew. She had just seen my waning bank account.
Then she surprised me. “You’re studying art, I can tell. Something to do with art, Yes?”
I was thrown. “How do you know that?” I asked without answering.
“I just have this sense about you…Art…It’s you.”
“Wow, well I am studying English literature, actually. That’s amazing.”
“Literature - yes! - I was going to say that.”
“How did you - ?”
“It’s just you. The way you are. The way you speak and the way that you act. I could tell right away.”
She then went on to tell me about how her best friend throughout university had been an English student as well. I reminded her of her. She still receives letters from this friend and when she gets them, she put her hand on her heart, they’re written like novels.The words, the meaning, the thought. It’s beautiful. It matters.
“What you do matters” she said, without knowing how important it was that she was saying that. Without any indication from me that I needed to hear that today.
This isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened. It’s not even close to the first time, actually.I’ve been outrageously fortunate thus far to run into just the right person at just the right time, who accidentally said just the right thing. But it still catches me off guard. I still marvel at how in the world they could know to say that - how a stranger could say something so meaningful, without even realizing.
How a stranger could know more about me than most of my friends.
How a stranger can notice something that everyone else ignores.
The soft-voiced stranger added something really meaningful to my day. I hope that maybe, by noticing “the way that I speak, the way that I act, the way that I am” she added something meaningful to her day too. Maybe I reminded her of something, or triggered inspiration. Maybe she’ll finally sit down and read that book she’s had on the table for a month. Maybe she’ll tell this story to her old friend.
I think my favourite part about talking to strangers, is that I get to be a stranger too. I think sometimes when you’re a stranger, you’re more yourself than ever before.
The beautiful intuition of a stranger.
