Everybody Speaks This Language

Andre in Bukarest Romania

I've been traveling lately, which for me means a suitcase that won't quite close, a notebook, and a stash of notecards and origami hearts tucked into the side pocket like contraband. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, yet still I came home with confirmation of something I already knew in my bones: people everywhere light up when they are seen.

“. . . people everywhere light up when they are seen.

Take the rainy afternoon in Bucharest when I ducked into a little coffee shop. I love a rainy day, and this one came with a bonus. The clerk, Andre, a young woman in her early twenties, and I started chatting, and we kept at it until the rain let up. She told me about the family who owns the shop and about the chocolates lined up in the window like tiny jewels. She hopes to visit America someday, and her English is good enough to step off the plane and fit right in. My Romanian, by contrast, amounted to a single word: Mulţumesc. Thank you. Her favorite customers, she said, are the ones who settle in and aren't in any hurry to stroll back out. I was happy to be one of them.

That night I wrote Andre a note, the way I do, and tucked a paper origami heart inside.

The next day I brought it back. She took the envelope, opened it, and read it right there at the counter. Then her whole face bloomed. Her eyes narrowed into those happy crescents that only a real smile can make, and her grin spread wide. It was pure heart and joy, and I didn't need a single word of explanation to understand it.

"Connection doesn't require
the perfect phrasing.
Mostly it takes attention.”

Connection doesn't require the perfect phrasing. Mostly it takes attention. The eyes do a great deal of the talking, and the body fills in the rest: shoulders that soften, the small lean-in that says keep going. Being noticed is a universal dialect, and nearly all of us are fluent.

What I keep learning, note after note and city after city, is how rarely people hear that they matter. Them. Not their work performance. Not their appearance. Just them. Andre has a gift for making a lingerer feel at home, and she deserved to know it.

So consider this my gentle nudge. The next time someone brightens your day, even for the length of a rain shower, tell them. Write it down if you can. Say it out loud if you can't. Then watch what happens in their eyes.

You'll understand every word.