Holding doors

I realize my view of the world and country--recorded on this blog--is rather negative and disappointed and even nihilistic.

So, today, I wanted to say something positive and uplifting.

I go to a Package Store in the north end of town that is owned and run by a wonderful family whose roots are in India but who lived in England before coming to America. It's a husband and wife and uncle and children and some interestingly bizarre young white men. One of the sons and his wife (also from Indian descent) recently had a baby boy and his picture is by the cash register. They are a lovely group. The mother (and seeming 'boss' of the whole bunch) calls everyone 'love', which I find precious.

Anyway, I've noticed people in the town of Cheshire (30,000 or so of them, becoming less homogeneous each year--more blacks and browns and Muslims) always hold the door for you at the package store.

Once I noticed that, I began to notice that people all over town, at the businesses that don't have automatic doors, do the same.

There is something to be said for an upper middle class white man holding open a door for a Hispanic just off work or a Black woman or someone with a hijab. And the opposite is also true--people who are diverse holding doors for others is a remarkably positive thing.

The question is: how do we start holding doors open for 'the other' on a national level?

How do white Republicans walk through doors held open by 'the squad' that the President has attacked so viciously? How do recent immigrants, even undocumented ones, walk through doors held open by 6th generation Americans? How do GBLTQ folk hold open doors for straight folks--and the opposite?

How do we turn holding doors open into a 'way of being' in this country?

The next time someone holds a door for you or you do for them, ponder my queries.

"Open doors" are the key to being truly free and united, Whenever someone holds a door for me, I give thanks. And when I hold a door for someone else, I am thankful as well.

Ponder that, deeply.