I just had a remarkable experience. I went for a walk.

I have been trying to stay active and physical despite all the work and play. Being responsible for my body is something that I am realizing is very important to me. I want to be healthy, I want to be well and apparently to achieve health and wellness, action- physical action for the sake of physicality- is necessary.

In any case, I went for a walk tonight. My mom was not thrilled that I chose sunset as my walk time, but I liked the light and I felt inspired. As I was making my way home a stranger and I approached. As we passed, I heard, through flimsy headphones, a “hello,” “hi” I said. Once passed, I heard “how are you?” I turned at this point and we exchanged very few words. I was asked if I lived in the neighborhood, I do. We shook hands, and then we hugged.

He hugged me because to him I guess I needed a hug, and I guess so did he. So he hugged me, he gave me a genuine hug. When I was ready for the hug to be over (it was in fact, brief, as it was a hug with a stranger) it ended. He is about my size, he is older, probably in his late forties, he has glasses and a baseball cap and two grocery bags.

He is a stranger and he hugged me on my walk tonight. It almost brought tears to my eyes. A hug from a stranger is slightly jarring. I didn’t feel threatened, or I wouldn’t have hugged him. I did feel though. I felt nervous and I felt surprised. Then I felt relief. I feel relieved because this stranger was kind to me. He simply felt compelled to make our interaction more than just awkward eye contact on a street in a city. I encountered countless other people on my walk, we made eye contact, we avoided one another’s eyes, we nodded, we looked down, away, we mumbled a quiet hello.

This person though, he and I, we hugged.

We hugged and it was okay and it made me feel cared for. He doesn’t know me or what life is like for me right now, so he couldn’t know what might have made me need that hug, but he and I were sharing a street in a city, and he cared enough to give it to me.

Only moments later I tripped right in front of two strangers. I didn’t fall, but it was funny and I laughed, they didn’t. They pretended like they hadn’t seen me at all, or like I hadn’t tripped. (I was directly beside them, they had stepped out of the way for me and in my rush to get past them so as not to inconvenience them further, I tripped. I know they saw me and it was funny.) They were the strangers who avoid eye contact, who look away, who nod and nothing more.

Life and life with strangers becomes habitual and impersonal. I don’t think that we should all run around the streets hugging, I think that would be equally impersonal after a certain point. I do think however, that the occasional sincere and unique interaction with someone despite whether or not we know each other at all is something good. It is something that we should all experience and if there is no one that we know around, then getting that sincere interaction from someone we don’t know is actually really comforting.

We are only human. We need support. I got my little bit of support from a stranger tonight. It was a curious feeling, but I am glad that it happened. It made me feel good.

Thanks for reading this; I’m really glad to have shared it with you.