Looking Around

Every time I hear that monologue from Love, Actually that Hugh Grant says about the arrivals gate at the Heathrow airport, I stop in my tracks. If you haven’t heard it, basically it explains how love is everywhere, you just have to look for it:

“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love actually is all around.”

I absolutely love this way to look at love. I feel like all we hear these days are the fear, the anxiety, the scariness. It’s incredibly important to be informed. In all honesty, I am privileged to be in a position where panic isn’t necessary for survival. However, I still somehow find myself getting wrapped up in the general negatives all too often.

Today I remembered the saying that love is all around and decided I would look for it. Yes, that’s corny. Yes that’s mushy. But I told myself to just go with it and to just seek it out. And it actually turned into an unexpected cutie little game that made the day more fun for me.

Some examples I saw: the girls I saw on the train fixing each others hair, the man who smiled and held open the coffee shop door for me, two coworkers laughing at each others jokes, a father helping his toddler zip up their winter coat, or even a child running to catch up to their mother to hold her hand on the sidewalk.

Each of these tiny moments were extremely small parts of my day, but they were memorable to me because even in some of the coldest and darkest January winter days in the city, they made my day have moments of light.

I think I’ll try to look for these moments more often.

- 🐝