Sunny thoughts for a bleary day

Today is an extraordinary day. My mind is free from the confines of education (for one night at least), andso I've been letting it run a bit amok in the last few hours. I've had some thoughts.
Something exceptional occurred in my ordinary day today, something out of the ordinary. I was waiting for the bus at school, and a man started talking to me. Without rhyme or reason, just because. He asked how I was and I asked him the same. He told me that he thinks people don't talk to each other very much anymore, and that we as people are losing communication. Coincidentally enough this is something I have been thinking about a bit in the last little while. Just last Sunday I was sitting out in the hazy new spring warmth with a few of my very good friends, listening to music, drinking beers and watching and waving to people going by. Pure Sunday perfection. While doing this, my friend Will observed the large amount of people wearing headphones, and commented shrewdly "No one talks to each other anymore". That stcuk with me, and ever since I've thought about it every time I ride the bus or walk down the street (usually wearing my own set of headphones, I will admit).
So today this man picked the right girl to strike up a conversation with. He pointed out to me that everyone is afraid of people attacking them, hurting them, thiings like this, so they keep to themselves and avoid contact with the strangers around them. Why do we do this? Why do we fear so much? I suppose I can understand the reasoning behind it, being a young girl and having shamefully weak defenses. The possibility of harm is always lurking. But you take that risk every time you step out your front door. Am I wrong? Is it so perilous to strike up a conversation with the person who is sitting right beside you, so close that they are touching you? Or is it a fear of small talk that begets this aversion to strager-contact? Admittedly, it is awkward. Perhaps its a fear of rejection, something which I have struggled with for years. This I can also uderstand. But I also am becoming to understand that we are becoming a society based on fear. This is not to say that a certain level of apprehension is unecessary. Especially in a large(er) type of city. But why should we fear the fellow student sitting beside us on the crowded 61 bus? Why should we fear the girl next door? Why should we fear the middle-aged african man waiting with us at the bus stop? I think that apprehension is robbing us of some of the greatest and most beautiful nuances that life has to offer. People are all around us! They surround us all the time in a city like this! People who could be wonderful, who could turn into fabulous friends, astounding acquaintences, or even just entertaining encounters if we gave it the chance.
Subsequently, this man who took the time to stop and chat with me is from Zimbabwe, and currently teaches African History and the university. His major is in agriculture, and he has an avid interest in all things farming. So, again, he was talking to the right girl! He asked if I could think of any way he could get connected with the rural Manitoba agricultural community, so I took his information and passed it on to my father, who I'm sure will revel in his interest. And I'm sure I will talk to him again in the near future. We both made new and interesting friends today. All because of a bus stop.



I am going to take the opportunity here to use that as a segway into talking about my long established and dearly loved friends back home. A random memory of them has been popping into my head quite frequently of late, and it gets me thinking. The memory is of this video my friend Mel made for her media class in high school. It involves Mel's cat Sonny, my friend Cassie and I doing some very bad acting (at least on my part) trying to sell some kind of odour neutalizing spray. I do not know why the image of this keeps popping into my head! But it got my wheels turning. The video was filmed in Mel's house, which she rented by herself that year. I remember filming it, requiring more "takes" than it should have to film a two minute segment, and busting our guts in between each stupid screw-up. We were so happy just being together and being young and goofing around. And yet at that same time we were going through the most tumultuous times we'd ever faced, and probably will ever face. Events that were undoubtedly more dramatic and tragic than any young girls should have to experience. And yet, we look back at those times as some of the best times in our lives. Were we just too young, at the tender age of 16, to really feel and appreciate the perilous weight of those events? Was it mere naivite that made that year seem so great? Or was it that, with so much of our lives messed up and falling down around us, we had no choice but to pull together and love each other and brighten those dreary days? (Though if there was a choice, it undoubtedly would result in the same answer) I like to believe the latter. In fact, I know that to be true. I'm dead certain of it. And although I wouldn't wish such things on any young, blossoming girls, I wouldn't trade them for the world. No matter how painful, confusing or scarring they were, none of it compares to the unconditional, irreplacable, indescribable love that we found in one another. The laughter, support, happiness and tears we all shared and how we shaped each other and imprinted on each other's hearts and souls forever. The sheer amazement of this is undescribable, and if the blindingly, overwhelmingly bright light of love had to come from such dark places, then so be it. I wouldn't have it any other way. I love you all, through thick and thin, forever and always.