I love walking home from my acting class. I walk past my favorite part of London, Covent Garden. It's inspiring. All the theatres. Cinemas. Bookstores.
It should take me about a fourty minute walk to get home, but usually it takes over three hours, because I just have to stop in each book store on the way and explore. In search of some meaning. To life. Or just to read the book of cat poems. Or this funny little book called: 'fuck it'. (Really good for stress relief I advice you all to read it). But back to where I was heading. I have stumbled upon the most beautiful poem the other day - and I simply HAD TO share it.
Here it goes:
If you sit down at set of sun
And count the acts that you have done,
And, counting, find
One self-denying deed, one word
That eased the heart of him who heard,
One glance most kind
That fell like sunshine where it went -
Then you may count that day well spent.
But if, through all the livelong day,
You've cheered no heart, by yea or nay -
If, through it all
You've nothing done that you can trace
That brought the sunshine to one face -
No act most small
That helped some soul and nothing cost -
Then count that day as worse than lost.
By: George Eliot
But then. Walking home, all I can see is busy Londoners. Too busy to see an older lady barely managing to keep her balance on the tube wagon... Not one will offer her their sit. Busy Londoners passing by a crying girl on a bench. Not one will ask her, what had happened. Busy Londoners ignoring the violinist. For whom one smile of appreciation would be worth more then thousand bucks. 7 million busy Londoners. The neighbor in the lift. Who will not even say hello. In fear of getting mugged perhaps... This is what I truly miss about Spain. The sense of belonging. The random smiles, the random compliments between strangers. Little chit chat with the upstairs neighbor... Little acts of kindness that don't cost a thing, but can mean so much...