RELATIONSHIPS October 10, 2005 Issue

'WHAT MANNER OF LOVE'

SUSIE RYNERSON

GO ONLINE, and without a doubt you'll find all sorts of information and advice about love and its place in relationships of every conceivable kind, many of them unusual and complex.

But what about the simple, quick, everyday contacts we have with people who work behind supermarket counters or shopping mall kiosks? Are loving relationships with them possible—or worth the effort?

I've come to say yes. I hold poignant memories of an occasion when a man working at a corner convenience store radically changed my day, lifting me out of emotional doldrums with a simple, warm smile. Then there was the time shortly after I'd moved from the United States to Spain, when a woman who spoke no English, and whom I'd only briefly met as she sewed curtains in my house, gave me a much-needed hug when I was crying over the passing of my dog.