Thursday's Thoughts   "My Friend the Butcher"


Well, you have to admit...that title caught your attention, didn't it?  But it states a fact, speaks the truth...my butcher is my friend.  And so is my fresh produce manager, my fishmonger, my dry cleaner, my hairdresser, even my dentist, unlikely as that one sounds.  As I look back at that sentence and consider revising it, one thing strikes me and I realize that, in its own little way, it unintentionally and unobtrusively conveys my meaning...the word "my."  Those two little letters express that there is a relationship, a belonging to, a connection with each of these people.  


When I finished my errands earlier today, first the cleaner's and then the supermarket, and had chatted with "my" butcher, and "my" dry cleaner's wife, it got me thinking along these lines...how people who were once complete strangers become a real part of your life, real friends over the years.  I thought how funny and how lovely a thing it is, even more so because of the seeming randomness of it...like a flower growing where it shouldn't be.  Each of these people could just as easily be "someone else's" butcher, dry cleaner, hairdresser, dentist and our lives would never have intersected.  But they have.  They are now someone whose name I know, whose expressions I know, whose laugh I know, whose weekends and Christmases and birthdays, and ups and downs I hear about...and they mine!  They are someone who I've grown accustomed to seeing, who I look forward to seeing, who I would miss if I didn't see...the are a part of my life, my universe.  I am a part of theirs...sheerly by chance of location, timing, destiny, grace...we can call it any of these things, or all of them!


Whatever the cause of the connection, there now is one.  I know that if something bad happened to them, I would feel badly.  And I think they would feel the same about me...there is a nice and pure reciprocity in our relationship that is not born of any obligation whatsoever.  What a nice thing when you think about it!


Years ago when my daughter was little, and as we walked to our car after a particularly long trek through our supermarket, peppered with many chats along the way at the counters and in the aisles, she posed this question to me.  "Mom, why do you talk to everybody so much?"   I had never even thought about it before.  All I could answer was what came to me quite naturally..."Because they are a human being and I am a human being, they are doing their job and I am doing mine, and if we can be nice to each other and maybe give each other a smile or a laugh, why wouldn't we? It doesn't take any extra energy to be nice as it does to be bland or nasty, so why not?"  She listened and seemed satisfied...smart girl!  It does make sense after all.  


Thanks for reading.  Let it steep!