The Kindness of Strangers. Part One.

I live in a tiny village in a tiny rural State where there exists only two options for clothes shopping: a sporting goods store which sells hunting & work clothes and two second hand shops. For the most part this suits me just fine as I find shopping for the sake of shopping to be an anesthetizing bore at best, and at worst, a confusing anxiety ridden activity wherein I travel some place where I can actually shop and become so over stimulated by all the bright shiny things that I come home with a bunch of weird shit that seemed like a good idea at the time but in the rural light of day makes no sense at all. I really need to be chaperoned at a mall. Living in a retail challenged environment, I have come to relish the experience of acquiring cool, beautiful things in more non- linear ways. For example, sometimes really, really, nice people just give you really nice things likes these earrings that you happened to admire on an elegant older woman. She then unclips them from her ears and places them in the palm of your hand and tells you they once belonged to her elegant husband's mother ( he sits across from her smiling )and that they would like you to have them. And this is so much better than shopping; this is sparkling human connection, this is kindness, this is magic.