Small Exchanges

 

Small Exchanges by Mary Payne

 A small encounter at a school in Sri Lanka, photo by marympayne

 I look for excuses for small exchanges…”I like your bag, so colorful." “Not so humid today…. lucky for the rain last night.”

 I see the Muslim mother covered head to toe in 32 degree heat, her four children spread around her like a fan… bright beach floats and bags bounce around us. They’re all tired, ready for home.  We’re waiting for the number 12 bus,

sweltering in direct sun.  It is a wonder that she is so calm, composed.  

I say something to her 5 year old, the fussy one of the four.  He is so startled to hear me that he stops his whining to stare, clutching on to his mother’s long skirts. The mother and I exchange a smile and a sentence. She says in broken French, that it is not her country, not her language… to explain why she can’t talk further.  But our exchange really needs no language. What we needed has already been accomplished.

Don’t we love to go to the restaurant and have the young waiter stop to converse with us over lunch. He has served all the tables now.  He wants us to be pleased, love his food.  He is co-owner; the restaurant new, but he doesn’t have to stop and talk, to introduce himself.  It makes us happy. We feel the implied friendship, the promise of conversation when we return.  

I notice that many people are indeed, kind. Some thank the bus driver.  Some help the frail ones out with their wheeled carts.  Sometimes the young ones look up from their phones and give up their seats….multi-tasking.

When we thank a kindness here, they say back to us, "de rien".  "It was nothing." But it's not

nothing.  It's "huge" as my sister would say.

Monsieur always lets people go ahead. “You only have a few things, go ahead.”he says. There are smiles and acceptance, occasional astonishment… sometimes, a “Non, monsieur, vous étiez avant moi.”  

“Je ne suis pas pressé”. he says.  “Allez-y”… I am not in a hurry, go ahead. 

Why hurry to the grave he says to me later, nothing to be gained by hurrying….and I can tell how much he gets from these encounters.  He shares them like a child proudly pulling small smooth stones from a pocket. 

Yes, a need to reach out… maybe just with a sentence or a look of complicity.  It’s an inner smile, a private pleasure.

Small exchanges are not small, no, not small at all.