A Compliment

Wow, my friend and coworker gave me a really nice compliment today. I was talking with her about the company gathering that we are having next week at the headquarters building. I asked if she wanted to ride over there together. She knows I'm a basket case. I could never go over there by myself and walk around alone. It would give me the worst anxiety; such a large crowd. It is a company-wide ordeal, spanning several buildings. I can not walk into situations like that and try to find people. I didn't go last year for that exact reason.

She said she understands where I'm coming from, but I know so many people. She told me even though she's worked more years than I, I know more people than she does. She said I am always friendly with everyone, and can talk to so many people. I can see that in myself. I always give people a smile, and ask how they are. It was a nice compliment that someone thinks I am outgoing and friendly. It made me remember a card that was stuck in my locker at work a few months ago. One lady was moving to another job and I hardly knew her. She put the note in my locker that said something about not knowing me, but knowing that I cared by the smile or "hello" that I would give. And it is the small things like that which count. It reminds me of a poem that speaks to me in the same way. That you can do something so small and you may not even know that you touched someone else.

The Solitary Reaper

Behold her, single in teh field,

Yon solitary Highland Lass!

Reaping and singing by herself;

Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,

And sings a melancholy strain;

O listen! for the Vale profound

Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands

Of travellers in some shady haunt,

Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard

In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,

Breaking the silence of the seas

Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow

For old, unhappy, far-off things,

And battles long ago:

Or is it some more humble lay,

Familiar matter of to-day?

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,

That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang

As if her song could have no ending;

I saw her singing at her work,

And o'er the sickle bending;-

I listened, motionless and still;

And, as I mounted up the hill,

The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.

--William Wordsworth--