r/CuratedTumblr refugee

as long as you smile and nod, people are satisfied. it’s just to show that you are nice and there with good intentions. we’re small in a big world and have to rely on other people to be decent to us. so we do our little human dance to each other to say, “i’m not here to hurt you. here’s something we have in common, like the weather or sports or itchy sweaters, so we both know we’re on the same team. we both agree on a basic fact, like that it is rainy or that being itchy is uncomfortable, and this proves we can get along. i’m being light-hearted and non-threatening right now.”

small talk isn’t to get to know a person. it’s just a greeting to affirm you’re buddies in the universe.

first image: (in bold) The cashier at the gas station asks me where I'm from

and when I say Ohio, he says "Go buckeyes" which I understand as a stranger offering language that can be shared. The way starlings roost on a power line, scooching over so the other can sit, flocked and fanning feathers against rain and never in my life have I seen a football game, but still I reply "Go buckeyes" which is a way of saying.: I accept. I would root with you in imaginary stands. Cheer at the same time in a darkened bar. We are more alike than not, us two. Here, let me shift, shuffle. Shelter a moment beneath this wing.

K. SULLIVAN

second image: Bold title: Small Kindnesses Smaller and fainter subtitle: Danusha Laméris

I've been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by. Or how strangers still say "bless you" when someone sneezes, a leftover from the Bubonic plague. "Don't die," we are saying. And sometimes, when you spill lemons from your grocery bag, someone else will help you pick them up. Mostly, we don't want to harm each other. We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot, and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder, and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass. We have so little of each other, now. So far from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange. What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these fleeting temples we make together when we say, "Here, have my seat," "Go ahead - you first," "I like your hat."