Friends & Strangers

We are in the last week of October. Believe me, I know how cliched it is to lament the swift passing of time, but here I am, doing just that. My girls will trick-or-treat on my childhood block on Halloween and then we will be looking ahead to Thanksgiving and Christmas. This is always a special, speedy stretch. But first things first, the rest of this good month. The rest of the Friendship topic of the HERE Year.

Look at Maya Angelou's words above: A friend may be waiting behind a stranger's face. What is your initial reaction to this?

I read this quote and smile. The world is teeming with strangers. I live my days in this city I love and pass strangers on the sidewalk hundreds of times a day and to think: some of these people whom we do not know, or whom we do not yet know, might become friends or dear friends. This all strikes me as intriguing and ultimately uplifting.

Think about friends you have now. From childhood or college or grad school or your neighborhood or from your job or our kiddo's school or your partner's soccer team or job or from Starbucks... they were all strangers first, right? Connection and intimacy are always, necessarily, preceded by strangeness, by distance. Am I the only one who thinks this observation, if subtle, is kind of interesting? Could be.

Thoughts on Maya's words? Any stranger-to-friend stories? Anyone else feel like time is blazing by?