My weekend ritual includes a trip to my local Dunkin, for a very large super caffeinated coffee. This morning, the young woman manning the drive through told me that she is very happy to see me pull up because I am always so kind, and usually people aren’t. This comment made my day, I felt amazing, pulling out and heading home (not because of the lack of kind people out there). The simple act of kindness, of connecting with strangers, is divinity in action. I cherish the “relationships” I have with local workers, the folks who greet me by name at the turnpike exit everyday, and the stories of their lives that I receive, bit by bit, add dimension to my day. I refuse to get an easy pass because it would mean that I wouldn’t find out where someone went for their four day weekend, and no one would ask me when my next race was. I was disturbed recently to find that a large grocery store was handing out self scanners. You scan your own groceries before placing them into a bag. This conveniently eliminates the need to converse with anyone while shopping. I enjoy asking cashiers how their day is going, and then listening as they tell me that their grandson is sick or that they have a doctors appointment coming up. I feel as if I am part of a community, I am a thread within the divine web. Technology has both created more and cut many existing connections we have with our fellow man. We are available 24 hours a day to receive phone calls or emails, but we lose the face to face conversations that bring us in contact with other people. So for today I am saying no to easy pass, to hand held scanners and to self checkouts. I cherish the connections I have with people out in the community. I enjoy being someone who makes others smile, it is a gift that is returned to me tenfold. Try it, you might like it.
● About Me
I wrote and published my first blog post on May 26, 2009. I was about to turn 36 and had been accepted to Mount Holyoke College as a non-traditional student, on my way to completing a Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in Medieval Studies. I had managed, finally, to know what general direction I was traveling. As a self proclaimed voracious reader I knew that I needed a vocation that would allow me to engage daily with words: reading words, writing words, and hearing words. I also needed to eat, so I navigated my way to a teaching position and I began to fine tune my craft. I love to teach and I love my students, but I also needed to continue to hone my own literary technique, voice, and style. I continued my education in order to delve deeper into literature, making connections, and most definitely, writing. I gained more confidence as a reader as well as a writer of both creative and analytical text. That first blog post in 2009 is short, the writing average, and the topic mundane, but as I continued to learn from other writers I began to understand that to become a better writer I needed to write more. Each time I write and release a poem, a post, or a story, I hone my skills. I invite you along for the ride, for this journey of mine as I attempt to wrangle a wealth of ideas and competing directions into an organized freshly paved path to publication. I might get distracted along the way, but sometimes those detours lead us to amazing views and new friends.
Laura Smith Writer 
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