One of the best things about living anonymously in the city is this:
Sometimes you walk around with a heavy heart. (this is a term which I prefer in the Dutch translation, by the way. When you say "heavy heart" it means your heart weighs a lot. In the Dutch version you say "een verzwaard hart." It means that something has been added to your heart to make it more heavy. It's being weighed down by something). You're walking and thinking, feeling anxious, scared, alienated, stressed. All these thoughts are going through your mind, making you feel foggy. The scenery flows by, but you don't notice it, you don't see the houses, the street stones, the pieces of grass between the tiles. All you see is the cloud in your head. And then, all of a sudden a stranger looks at you and smiles. Just smiles. For no reason. He breaks through the cloud. The stranger has no idea. But he just single-handedly made your heart feel lighter again by doing the most simple thing in the world: smiling at you.
Do you remember that? The last time a stranger smiled at you for no reason and it made you feel better?
I'm not sure, but I remember that this idea occured in the movie Constantine also. I believe the idea was that when you see a stranger and feel lighter afterwards, this was an angel. And when you see someone that gives you the creeps, it's a demon. I like to think about that whenever that happens: I was just visited by an angel. (I try to forget about the demon-part :)
This makes me think about another thing. Sometimes this one happy moment can be 1000 more powerful than a whole period of unhappiness. Do you know what I mean? It's as if you get to start over. It doesn't matter anymore, because you feel better now. You see this beautiful sunset and you just sigh. Everything is behind you now. You let it go.
Remember to smile at strangers sometimes. It helps make the world a nicer place.
