Just One...Begin Here

Hello love. Yes, you! You there, across the street on this brisk morning in Los Angeles. The sun is just high enough that the sky still looks faintly naive and the air still feels fresh. "Good morning" I shout to you. You look over, unsure, scared, a little confused perhaps. You assess, I do not look like I am disturbed, I am holding a sign. I have friends near me. I am a safe distance away.

I am smiling and waving at you.

You there, across the street.

You felt it then, our borderless skins.

You shout, "I love you too." Then you put your head down again and walk a bit faster. I wonder if perhaps you felt it was silly? I want you to know it was beautiful.

I want you to know that this is the world we want to create. In this moment you helped create it.
It was experiences like this that fed me Saturday morning, the first opening of the hello love gates. It was finding a man smoking a cigarette and reading the dictionary on a motorcycle at 7:00 on a Saturday morning. It was the old woman who walked with me down the road telling me a story about a man who gives her a sandwich every time he sees her. So she is sure not to forget her teeth.

It was the man with the black wig and the white lip liner who told me his story and said of our project, "If the whole world was like this... wouldn't that be nice." It was the homeless man sleeping beneath the freeway who would wake to see one of our signs. It was every honk, every wave, every smile, no matter how hesitant or eager. This is what the hello love experiment gave to me, and I hope, perhaps, gave to each of them.

Now I won't suggest you run right our there and stand on a street corner waving at people right this second (you can do that later if you want). But I would reccommend picking one person today, try to meet their eyes, and silently greet them with hello love. I'm reminded, as I say this of a potato chip ad from a few years ago, something like, "betcha can't eat just one." I bet you can't stop at one. But begin here.

Go on now, you can do it, just one.... hello love