Birthday Wish: To Share Goodness With All

Creative Station

There were smiles and hugs and shining eyes.  Conversations and exchanges and surprised acceptances.  All with perfect strangers.  These moments were collected this past Sunday, when a group of friends, inspired by some chai shared in birthday celebration in India, celebrated a birthday by making and then giving cookies, brownies and notes to strangers in the street.

Quality Control

(Some of) the Girls

To people sitting on sunny terraces, we asked “What goes best with that coffee you’re enjoying?  How about some home-baked love-filled cookies?”  And with that, we would leave them to enjoy their snack with a new smile on their lips.  We handed brownies to three girls smoking outside a bar; they were so touched to receive them, our exchange ended in hugs shared between us and them.  Three men, denounced as painters by their clothes and hands, stood at the corner of Mission and 17^th exchanging words until we started exchanging brownies and deep connections of gratitude: them for the gifts and us for the opportunity to give.  They bowed in thanks and their eyes glittered full of joy.  Between brownie-infused interactions, we left anonymous notes on cars’ windshields for the owners to find after we’d passed.  As a couple walked past me, I offered them cookies; “no” was the quick and short answer.  At the next light, I caught up to them and hypothesized that the light held them back clearly because they, deep down, wanted cookies.  This time, they smiled and asked our motivations for distributing the sweets.  While they still didn’t take the cookies, something had shifted in them as they walked away laughing and talking.  If the Mission Street lights had provided the opportunity to catch up to them another time, that third time would have been the charm; I bet we would have exchanged cookies and thanks.

Monty tagging a homeless woman

Three hugging girls in front of the bar

After several experiences connecting with the less fortunate (sharing a moment and acknowledging their human-ness), Sunday, I played with touching “people like me”, meaning people unlikely to touch food from a stranger with a ten-foot pole.

Each interaction was a new experiment, finding the place within me that connects with the place within them.  The key is trust.  The first 2-second interaction had to create enough trust to open a tiny door, which allowed for the next 4-second chat to open a bigger door, which then blew the door right off the house and rocked them.

The part that totally rocked me to the core, particularly that b-school core, was:  There is absolutely no way to account for and measure the effect of our actions on Sunday.  No way of knowing the stories that did – and may continue to – unfold.  What we do know is the stories that touched and moved us.  That is the priceless gift.

Parth sweetening a bus driver's ride

Last one! No more sugar cookies or banana-peanut-butter-oatmeal cookies or brownies

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~ by me on April 7, 2011.