happy to be human

sometimes you just have days where you feel so happy to be a human being. today was one of those days.

lisbee, lauren, brittany, bridget, and i went into boston today - to hit up all of the fall festivities which all hit on the same weekend in october: specifically the head of the charles regatta and the life is good pumpking festival.

there's just something about milling about in swarms of people that can sometimes strike you as oddly comforting. particularly when you have little moments of connection. i had a lot of those today.

* the guy handing out free samples of starbuck's coffee at the head of the charles, who was probably having the best day ever as the most popular person for that particular day...

* the fitting room attendant who could only laugh as we attempted to dress each other in the most hideous formal dresses we could find in the macy's formal section (you would be surprised how many there were!)...

* the mom at the pumpkin festival who could only join us in chuckling over the antics of her three year old daughter who preferred much more to walk over the rows of pumpkins forming the pumpkin maze rather than walking in the corridors and pathways they formed...

* the grad student from boston university squeezed next to me on the train home who happened to be from texas (as noted by her james avery ring)...

and then there were the moments where you just meet eyes with someone, and it's such a beautiful moment. how often do we really look someone in the eye? even in conversation with our closest friends, it's still fairly rare to make and hold eye contact for very long. and yet when you do - when it's an adorable old woman swaying with the motion of the train, firmly grasping the bar with one hand and the edge of her oversized cream-colored cardigan with the other, who meets your eyes and responds to your smile in kind, smiling so much her eyes disappear underneath a field of wrinkles - your heart can't help but sing at the common-ness of our humanity. of the wonder of the god who loves us all into being every moment of every day and connects us in such a deep and profound way.

i'm home now, but my heart still burns with life, a life so much better shared with those around me - the ones upon whom i rely so strongly and the ones that the world would label stranger but who so much more deserves to be brother or sister...

kayak on campus

so i was waiting outside my 3 pm class this afternoon - flipping through the pages that i hadn't read, hoping (as one generally does) that somehow i would be able to glean the contents of those leaves with a simple glance and that i wouldn't make a fool of myself in class discussion.

now i have to take a step back. there's a class that meets in the same room, right before my class which always runs right up to 3 o'clock, and i have never known what class it is. sometimes you walk into a classroom and you see notes scribbled all over the board and you can sort of figure out what you're dealing with, but this professor apparently never writes anything down, making my curiosity unmistakably peaked.

so, back to the hallway...

suddenly, the door opened and out poked the tip of a paddle, followed shortly thereafter by a student - a guy my age or a little older. he set the paddle against the wall, re-entered the classroom and closed the door behind him. absolutely perplexed and obviously intrigued, i cautiously returned to the flipping pages, keeping one eye overtly on the classroom door.

a few minutes later it opened again. this time the first thing that greeted my view was a blue plastic conical object which, a split second later, i realized was the nose to a bright blue kayak. the same guy carried out this kayak, placed it in the middle of the hall, and began to matter-of-factly stow the paddle in its special compartment. after getting over my sheer surprise, i saw that this guy was actually wearing swimming trunks instead of shorts, and these crazy water shoes instead of sandals - they looked like a cross between barney the dinosaur's feet and the toe socks i used to get for christmas and treasured beyond anything else.

so completely tickled, i had to ask the guy what on earth was going on. public speaking, he replied. he had just given a speech for his class on kayaking, and the kayak was his visual aid. with that, he hoisted the kayak to his shoulder and set off down the hall.

it was all so matter-of-fact. of course there's a kayak wandering around my campus, isn't there one on yours?