The speed of love

An elderly, blind woman and a toddler on the train remind me of the power of love.

‘Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.’ - Maya Angelou.

As the train whizzed through a valley of rugged slopes, pine trees and whitewashed buildings I was reading (for some unknown reason) about the speed of sound and light; 1 mile in 5 seconds or 186000 miles in a second. I couldn’t quite get my head around why these two things should be so different. I was also marvelling at my ability to read these kind of facts and then forget them, utterly, all over again. 

We arrived in no time at all, but we got off at the wrong station and had to walk a bit further around the side of the city hill. In all honesty I was happy for the walk. Google Maps soon announced we ‘had reached our destination’. We were still early, surprisingly.

Relieved we had not lost our way, we stopped in a bar, the nearest at hand. Chipped, formica tables and gloss-black painted chairs, a gambling tower of fast, spinning lights by the door. There was a layer of white paint above our heads, the type that doesn’t know a straight line that had probably remained unchanged since cheap airline flights were born. A visit to the loo revealed (as it always does) much without the need for words; the door jammed at the porcelain basin, so it was a giggle of a three-point-manoeuvre to get in and out. But I hesitated to judge the place based on the level of upkeep alone.

This place had a positivity in the air, it was noisy, and full of chatter, full of laughter and heart. Everybody seemed to know everyone else. Music was playing on the broken TV up on the wall. There was no picture. In fact it was difficult to hear each other talk as everybody shouted to be heard. There was a family feel. And the vibes reverberated off the tiles.

As we sipped our drinks an elderly woman came in with a serious limp, accompanied by a young Chinese chap who found her a table a palm away from ours. She was wearing a frayed tracksuit top with a zip and a white T shirt. You could see the white V at her neck, stained with dry coffee which matched the sleeves. He put his arm on her shoulder for comfort as we realised this lady was completely blind. He talked to her and assured her, ‘lunch wouldn’t take long’. As she settled herself she heard our foreign voices and moved, by touch, her black plastic handbag to the other side of her chair, nearer the bar and nearer anyone else walking in, but at least away from our foreign voices. Maybe at this point I should have chatted to her to break the ice, as a comfort, but at the same time she looked scared of anything new, and I couldn’t blame her.

In no time at all the woman serving behind the bar proudly brought lunch to her table calling her darling and beaming a smile.

The old lady heard the smile. I have never seen so much food on one plate! Two large burgers, tons of salad and chips which she found easier to eat using her fingers. She returned the smile while looking down in the direction of her lunch.

We paid for our drinks and left and as we did so, we wished ‘bon appetite’, as everyone does here. At that point she smiled at us via the tabletop. It was a beautiful smile that filled out her crumpled, pale face.

I loved how they fed her. They could have skimped on her lunch, but no, they thought of her welfare, cheering her up and gave her a lunch fit for an athlete while she lapped up the love.

Later that day, after a delicious lunch, on the homeward train, there was a baby opposite us, bouncing on her mother’s lap. She had the giggles. She scrunched up her cute button nose every time she laughed. Her mother’s hand was firm round her perfect, potbelly-tummy to stop her from tumbling to the floor. As the train sped through the tunnels the toddler looked pale against the shiny black window behind. She was lapping up the love too. She couldn’t stop smiling. And it was infectious. Within five minutes at least five of us were smiling back at her stardom.

And I thought about these two, about how utterly dependent on the love of others they both were to keep them alive and I thought about the power of the magic in a smile. How laughter had transformed both noisy, busy places to make them feel safe. As my eyes felt sleepy with the motion of the last train, and as it curved fast along the coast, I thought about the speed of love; how it might travel slowly like sound, or fast like light. Whatever speed it travels at, it’s exponential and it’s measured in smiles not miles.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s tale. I think much of our lives is spent learning about love. The power of it. The beauty of it. The sparkle. Don’t you?

‘The giving of love is an education in itself’. - Eleanor Roosevelt.

Wishing you a peaceful weekend, full of heart and love, and measured in smiles.