The messenger.

Travel Days are their own disorienting haze and yesterday’s was particularly brutal what with a 5 hour time change and an 80° temperature differential. Aruba to Dublin? Nice work if you can get it.

On the second leg of my trip, JFK –> DUB, I was worn a bit thin, but I was wearing the Yeti hat so the smiles and random conversations it generated perked me up. As I was squeezing through the aisle with my knapsack and bag-o-shite, a woman seated towards the front of the plane looked up, saw me, and her face burst into the brightest smile. She gestured to me, making an encompassing movement with her hands

“You are so beautiful! You just glow, so radiant…! Everything about you..” she gestured again “…perfect! SO lovely!”

She smiled and I, totally taken aback and my eyes a bit prickly with tears, nodded and smiled back “Thank you…” but my voice broke a bit. She nodded, her hand outstretched towards me and in that moment I did feel that. Radiant. Beautiful.

Thank you, madame, stranger who saw me, for your share, for your energy.

See, I have an ongoing assignment to see myself as others see me and today? You gifted me that moment so beautifully and in a way that was so humbling and joyous.  I am grateful.  SO grateful.