Thank You, Stranger
After a week of thinking about how far our own small acts of kindness might travel, I found myself on the receiving end of one.
I had been hiking on Friday and apparently lost my bandana somewhere along the way. I didn’t even realize it was missing.
Then on Monday, halfway through another hike, I reached for my bandana. I always have one. Except this time I didn’t.
When I got back to the car, there it was, draped over a fence post.
Someone had found it on Friday and put it where I might see it. And there it had stayed all weekend, while friends and strangers passed by, until I came back on Monday.
I have no idea who picked it up.
Sometimes you don’t get to thank the person who was looking out for you.
You just get to be grateful that somebody was.
This September, I tried something new. Instead of planning every ThankU.io story ahead of time, I decided to receive first. Notice what showed up. Treasure it. Then find the story.
That is not my natural way of doing things. I have spent most of my life planning ahead, looking around corners and preparing for what comes next. But this month I wanted to see what might happen if I loosened my grip on the plan and paid closer attention to what was already arriving.
And in the final days of September, three small gifts appeared. None was dramatic. None was planned. But each asked me to notice.
Someone Was Looking Out for Me
After a week of thinking about how far our own small acts of kindness might travel, I found myself on the receiving end of one.
I had been hiking on Friday and apparently lost my bandana somewhere along the way. I didn’t even realize it was missing. After a busy weekend, I was back on the same trail Monday. Halfway through the hike, I reached for my bandana. I always have one. Except this time I didn’t.
When I got back to the car, there it was, draped over a fence post.
Someone had found it on Friday and put it where I might see it. And there it had stayed all weekend, while friends and strangers passed by, until I came back on Monday.
I have no idea who picked it up. Sometimes you don’t get to thank the person who was looking out for you. You just get to be grateful that somebody was.
Some Gifts Taste Like Memories
Almost every time I go to Pilates, there is a basket of fresh vegetables waiting by the front desk. They are clearly homegrown: odd shapes, wonderful colors, yellow squash, green cucumbers and tomatoes that look and taste like tomatoes. Tucked into the basket is a handwritten note: “Help Yourself. :)”
I don’t know who grows them. I’ve never met the gardener. But I have gratefully helped myself.
And then I tasted one of the heirloom tomatoes.
Suddenly, I was a little girl again in the Santa Clara Valley, long before anyone called it Silicon Valley. The valley I grew up in was apricot orchards and tomato fields. After the commercial pickers finished for the season, Mom would take the four of us kids out to gather the tomatoes left behind. Tomatoes don’t all ripen at once, so there were always more to find.
Then came the hot work in the kitchen: peeling tomatoes, filling jars and canning them. We canned pears and apricots too, whatever was left over and available. Mom had grown up on a farm. She knew how to preserve a harvest, and she knew how to put four busy kids to work.
The jars went into the basement of our old house on Addison Avenue in Palo Alto, the house built before the 1906 earthquake. One summer, digging out that basement was one of Mom’s projects for us. Eventually there were stairs, a big chest freezer, and cupboards filled with the things we had canned. The freezer, of course, was where you kept the bodies.
All these years later, one bite of a tomato from an anonymous gardener gave all of that back to me: my mother, my brothers, my little sister in a high-chair, our blue house on Addison Avenue, Ginger the stinky old boxer dog, that hot kitchen, the jars in the basement, and a little piece of the valley where I grew up.
So one day, I left a thank-you note.
Sometimes you don’t even know who gave you the gift. You can still say thank you.
And Then a Little Joy Sailed By
Down the hill from our mountain home, across Skyline Boulevard and down Ward Road, is Jikoji Zen Buddhist Center.
I first discovered Jikoji years ago when I was looking for places to hike with my corgis, Toby and Piper. I wandered down the road, found this little Zen Buddhist community tucked into the mountains, and over the years it became part of the landscape of my life.
Near the center is a meditation pond that is especially dear to me. I have spent many happy moments sitting beside that water, getting what I call my “soul hugs.” I sit. I get quiet. And every once in a while, it feels as though God reaches out and gives me a hug.
One day, while I was sitting there, something floated into view.
A tiny homemade raft was skimming across the pond. Plastic jugs underneath. A little white sail. And painted right in the middle of that sail was a great big yellow heart.
I have no idea who made it or why. I just know that on that particular day, while I was sitting quietly beside a pond I love, a little joy sailed by.
Maybe that is enough.
Receive. Notice. Treasure.
A bandana waiting on a fence post. A basket that said “Help Yourself.” A little homemade raft with a heart on its sail.
This month I set out to practice receiving instead of always planning. I wondered whether the stories would still come if I stopped trying so hard to find them.
They did.
Perhaps the good was never waiting for me to plan it. Perhaps it was already there: left by a stranger, grown in someone’s garden, floating quietly across a pond.
September gave me plenty to notice.
Find the Good and Share it Out Loud.
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