Searching for love is one of the most interesting expeditions one can take on in their life because it doesn’t have a timeline to it. My mother and sister own a flower shop in the Northern suburbs of Chicago and I worked for them yesterday as a delivery driver so I got the chance to see the expressions on people’s faces that the sender never sees. Being that it was Valentine’s Day and people were out doing their shopping for flowers, candy, jewelry, and anything else they thought would express their love for one another it was interesting!
All the flowers were for women on my delivery route and as I went from business to business there were flower deliveries sitting next to each other on the receptionist desk as if waiting in line for something. As I walked in the look of ‘oh another flower delivery’ set upon the persons face sitting behind the desk looking bored. When I would see the look I immediately smiled and started talking to them as if we have known each other for years. After a few seconds of that then I would say who the flowers were for and they would summon them to the front. As we waited I kept talking to them and made the short visit about them and not the flowers, then the recipient of the flowers would walk in. By now whoever was behind the desk was smiling and laughing along about silly things I would say and I would present the flowers to the person that walked in. 9 out of 10 the recipient of the flowers was either not surprised or slightly interested that they got something. So by now I’ve made a new friend and were both enjoying a laugh but the flowers that were meant as an expression of love was dismissed, signed for, and surely plopped on their desk as a bookend.
I can only imagine the text, email, (or rarely these days) the phone call that was sent to the sender of the flowers ‘just got the flowers thank you so much!’ and it’s kept short with the excuse that they are at work. The flip side is the senders that walked into the shop with the look of ‘I’m here so what do you have for me?’ almost as if we had set an appointment with society to show up on that day. Is that what we have done? Set appointments to love each other?
Most of the people that walked into the shop were men and it just really felt like they were there with the expectation to spend lots of money with the hope that their partner would love it! If we place both the sender and the recipient next to each other their looks would not tell a story of love. Out of all the deliveries I made I had maybe 3 or 4 genuine expressions of happiness for receiving the flowers and that’s out of about close to 30 deliveries. I’m not calling the recipient ungrateful but what I am saying is that our society has become one of superficial routines and the expression of true love is being lost.
Where are we headed with these routines we have created for ourselves?
I think that one of the unfortunate outcomes of this type of routine is the disconnection of loving the strangers in our daily lives. What I mean by that is we walk pass many people every single day without any concern to their existence. We do this so much that when we see someone smiling at us or at least in our direction we quickly check them out and wonder ‘what makes them think I’d be attracted to them?!’ Now, I’m not naïve and know that there are some people that are a bit creepy and well that’s a whole different story…what I’m getting at is why are we so unworried about those around us?
A celebrity linked a video of children in Syria trapped and suffering from the battles going on over there and she says that it breaks her heart to see that. I wonder if she feels the same about children that live just 45mins away from where she lives. I don’t think she’s a bad person but I do believe it is part of that disconnect that we have as a society that we really don’t show the unconditional love for one another regardless of the fact that we all live on the same land. She should be concerned about what is going on in Syria but what we do at home sets the example for others to follow.
We all need to be that leader in our society showing our concern for each other every day not just on days that a corporation has appointed as the day of “Love” and that’s the only way will be able to move forward.
It is nice to celebrate on certain days certain things but when will we celebrate each other’s humanity?
May 1st 2012 through September 3rd 2012 I’m going to try my best to celebrate YOU by going across the country and speaking with YOU about Peace in our society. How do we reduce violence in our communities and among our youth? There are many avenues to help and they all involve including youth in a more serious participation in our society’s function.
I really need your help to achieve this goal! On the top right hand side of this Blog there is a donation link and you can click that to drop in a few bucks to help me along the way and it would be greatly appreciated! The donation is tax deductible and as soon as you submit the donation you’ll receive a response from the donation site and you’ll have your receipt to use for tax deduction purposes.
For those of you that have already given I thank you VERY much and I will make you proud!
Peace/AMOR
Gerardo
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