Neighborliness

I took our dog, Coda, on a short walk this evening around the neighborhood closest to our apartment. It's a lovely place. Kevin and I have thought long and hard about moving there if the right house came open at the right time. (Also, it's extremely convenient because we wouldn't have to rent a truck--we could walk our stuff right over!) It seems very friendly, but I didn't know just how friendly until this evening.

At the end of the block, there was a little girl outside, drawing on some paper as she knelt on her driveway. She was adorable--for me, the perfect little girl in that she was short, her clothes were a little frilly, and her curly hair was standing almost straight up from every end. Her parents were also no where in sight. At first, I thought she was coloring with sidewalk chalk, but the paper curled up and I saw it was some kind of glitter crayon she was using. She looked up as I walked by and said simply, "Hello!" "Hi there," I replied. "That's really beautiful," I continued, realizing that she had cut the paper out to look like wings of some sort, or a sort of butterfly.

"Do you want one?" she asked me. As I started mumbling something about not wanting to take what was hers, she ran towards me, one half of a pale green wing (or perhaps a leaf), smattered in red glitter, was making its way toward my hand. "Thank you!" I said as she put the leaf in my hand and made sure I had a firm grip on it. And with that, she went back to coloring, almost as if she was getting the next one ready for the following passerby.

I thought to myself, I hope that I can have that kind of attitude about my neighbors. If each of us were so willing to give our gifts to others, to believe that those things we have to offer could actually bring some joy to another person's life, I wonder how much more we would be willing to give.