It is several years ago and I am working on an awareness campaign with a group of individuals with lived experience of homelessness. They want ‘the others’ to know they’re not all bad people. That it’s the circumstances of their lives that may be different than others, but they are still human beings. They have dreams. Needs. Wants. Wishes. And one of them is, to be treated with dignity.

“But didn’t you spend all your time concocting ways to make ‘the others’ feel uncomfortable?,” I tease one of the men, (I’ll call him Jack) a tall, burly Indigenous man whose life path lead him to surviving 20 years on the streets. “Didn’t you make all sorts of plans on how to create trouble for ‘them’?”

Jack laughed. “Yeah. Right. There I was all hopped up on drugs and I’m spending my time trying to figure out how to hurt some white guy on the street instead of trying to figure out how I’m gonna get my next hit?” He went on to talk about how, for him and his cohorts, ‘the others” were the ones they wanted to avoid. They only caused them trouble, and trouble meant involving the cops and that’s the last thing anyone wants when they’re trying to survive on the streets.

And then he added, “You don’t hear a lot of stories about homeless people killing non-homeless folk. It’s mostly the other way around. Like those kids who poured gasoline on a guy sleeping under a bridge and set him on fire. They weren’t homeless. They came from some ‘other’ neighbourhood.”

I was reminded of Jack this morning when I read David Kanigan’s powerful post, Waiting. At the Star Market. Trying to Bend the Image. on his blog, Live & Learn. (David is an exquisite writer. His posts always provoke deep thinking.)

In David’s story, he is struggling with a decision to sit on a seat at a train station. It’s a couple down from a man who appears to be experiencing homelessness. The story in his head is complex and very human. Should I? Shouldn’t I? What if?

He tells it beautifully and I am there with him. I have had that internal conversation. Felt the eyes of ‘the others’ watching to see what I will do.

Sometimes, I have chosen to sit down. Sometimes, not.

Yet, no matter my decision, it is that very conversation in my head that creates my ‘otherness’.

Charity, kindness, compassion are not committed once we’ve weighed the options, considered the consequences. They are born of the heart, given without expectation of reciprocity. Enacted because we see all humanity as us. Not ‘us’ and ‘them’. Us.

In David’s story, he sat down.

Eventually, the other man walked away. Perhaps he, like Jack, was afraid of ‘the other’. Perhaps he was trying to avoid contact with ‘the other’, because in his world, trouble is all ‘the others’ have caused him.

What if… There are ‘others’ and there are ‘the others’.

What if… Some of us live in ‘otherness’. Privilege. Relative comfort. In homes with running hot and cold water. We have closets filled with clothes. Stories that make up our lives of abundance, or if not abundance, at least enough to get month to month without fearing losing it all.  And, there are others who have stories of lack. Of loss. Of poverty… of things. And not of spirit. Heart. Dreams.

What if… those we view as having nothing, or as being the ‘other’ to our ‘otherness’, are seeking that which we seek? Dignity. Respect. Love. Happiness. Peace. Joy. Connection. Belonging…

What if… we all decided to sit down beside one another or at the same table and didn’t see it as an act of charity bestowed from one to another but simply as an act of making human connection.

What if… no matter where we walk, or stand, or sit, we see each other as the same kind of human, just different?

What if… we stop having conversations in our heads and instead, share… a meal, a moment, a smile… a conversation?

On our walk to the off leash area, Beaumont and I pass through a picnic area along the river. Yesterday, though overcast and misty, a family was holding a birthday party for their young daughter, about 5 or 6 years old.

There were several young children running around the park. Pointed polka-dot paper hats on heads. Balloons streaming behind them as they ran about, each attached to a long bright red ribbon. At one point, I heard a mother say to her young son as she walked with him and an even younger son, “What good sharing Jay. Letting Luke [the younger child who was following his older brother around] have the balloon is so kind.”

And just then, the younger boy let go of the ribbon and the balloon began to rise up into the air. He stood transfixed, watching it float higher and higher, and then he began to cry.

The mother knelt down beside him, pulled him into a hug and said, “It’s okay. The balloon’s going up to play with the clouds.”

I wanted to stop and tell them, “No. It’s not going up to play. It will probably end up in some birds stomach and be the death of that bird.”

I did not stop and share my thoughts with the woman and her son.

Sometimes, the kindest thing to do is walk away in silence. Not every moment is a teaching moment.

Beau and I continued on our walk and when we arrived at ‘his park’, I let him off the leash and he bounded through the tall grasses, chasing blowing leaves and dandelion puffs.

I walked. He ran. I laughed at his antics. He kept running, his nose constantly leading him from one side of the trail to the other, into bushes and fields of wildflowers. At the trail where we usually turn to walk down to the water’s edge, I kept going straight. He looked at me. He looked at the trail to the river.

“But what about my cool drink and refresh?” he seemed to ask as he looked at me and back to the trail to the river.

“C’mon buddy. No river today,” I called out as I kept walking the other way.

He gave one last longing look at the river trail and then bounded after me.

The birthday party revellers were gone by the time we walked back through the picnic area. So was the balloon.

I don’t know how far it soared, or where it has gone. I wonder where and when it will come back to earth. How much harm will it cause on its journey?

For such a small thing, a balloon carries a big impact.

Each day, my world is filled with big and small moments to savour, to cherish, and some to walk away from.  Each thing I do has an impact. Big. Small. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Yesterday, I encountered a moment where my reaction lead me to walk away. Not right. Not wrong. Just an opposite reaction to an action.

Today, I choose to release my thoughts on ‘what I could have done differently’, and let my worry go like a balloon floating off into space.

Today, I think about that balloon and my walk with Beau and I remember what is most important. For that mother and her sons, it was the time together. The moments shared.

Just as that was what was important for me. Being outside with Beau in nature. Savouring the small moments.

I take a breath.

No matter the action and our reaction, it is always time to savour the moment, to reflect on our blessings and give thanks for all that is present in our lives; that which we deem ‘good’ or bad and to acknowledge, life is a gift we’ve been given to live in Love. And sometimes, in Love means walking away  in silence.

Namaste.