Kindness travels with the simplest of things. Interactions, smiles shared, an embrace, a nice doorman. This weekend, kindness washed over me and circled my inadequate self and I latched on to the gestures that drifted my way. Real life overflows with them, though so often we forget to notice.

A doorman at the Renaissance walked quite a ways to help with my bags and inquired about our weekend plans. When I shared that I was speaking, he said thoughtfully, “You will do just fine.” His kindness didn’t stop there, many times over the weekend I spied him from the corner of my eye and he hastened to open a door or make his way inside to push the elevator button. The simplest of kindness, yet it went such a long way. I wish I had asked his name.

I shared my heart at St. Michael’s and was welcomed into the fold of women like a long lost friend. My mother and I spent quite a bit of time together, on our own, and that is a gift I have learned to relish. I had a few good friends there, their familiar presence whispered comfort from the physical space near the back of my anonymous audience. A token of friendship I know; its not easy to displace motherhood, tossing your family on the back burner for a weekend.

I celebrated the birthday of a dear friend that left this earth far too soon. I watched his boys blow out candles, hugged his parents and greeted the girl hosting a birthday party for the sake of her precious sons. I was flooded with this gesture of kindness that I know wasn’t easily accomplished.

On my way out of town, I swung by the house of a kind soul I knew only by name, Beth Smith. A reader of my blog and quite an amazing watercolorist. She gifted me a painting of Amos, a portrait nearly his size, so beautiful, I was speechless. I was reminded the sea is so large and my boat is so small, but kindness is the buoyancy that makes life so amazing. It is the tiny and not so tiny gestures that give rise to real joy and instill a mindful soul in a mama in love with every day life. Oh, I went back to ask his name, it’s Clifton.