Someone Left Love on Our Pitch

Have you ever been welcomed somewhere by someone who wasn't there?  It happened to me on a recent trip, and I can't stop thinking about it.

My husband and I jumped on the Campervanwagon a couple of years back, and our trusty van, Wanda, has carried us round some of Scotland's loveliest corners since.  This time we wandered round Skye, Lochcarron and Dornie, where Eilean Donan Castle sits on its wee island looking every bit as breathtaking as the postcards promise.

We pulled into our overnight site in Balmacara tired and a bit crumpled, found our pitch, climbed out to stretch our legs... and there it was: a random act of kindness from a total stranger.

A stone.  Heart-shaped all on its own, painted pink, with LOVE written across it in red.  It sat among the grey chippings at the edge of the grass as if it had been expecting us.  I stood and looked at it for a while, wondering and pondering (as I’m wont to do).

Someone thought of us before we'd even arrived

What gets me is the thought behind it.  Somebody noticed a stone that nature had already shaped into a heart, which is a gift in itself, because most of us walk past a hundred stones a day without a second glance.  They painted it, then they chose to leave it behind for whoever came next.

They had no idea who that would be.  Newlyweds.  A family squabbling over who forgot the tin opener.  Someone on their own, having a rotten week.  The painter was never going to hear a thank you or see a face light up, but they did it anyway.

Why feeling welcome matters more than we admit

I think we underestimate what it means to feel welcome.  We're social creatures at heart, and whenever we arrive somewhere unfamiliar, some ancient part of us starts asking questions.  Am I safe here?  Am I wanted?  Do I belong?  Most of the time we don't even notice we're asking.  But when someone answers before we've had the chance, the whole body stops holding its breath.

That wee stone did just that.  Our pitch stopped being a patch of gravel in a campsite and became somewhere that had been waiting for us.

Anyone who read my blog about a bowl full of colourful stones will know I've a soft spot for a stone that carries a message.  It seems I'm not the only one.

The universe has a habit of leaving notes

Call me daft, but I believe in these signs.  I see them as the universe having a word in my ear.  Not with thunderclaps or burning bushes, but with a painted heart on a Highland campsite, reminding me that people are, for the most part, kind.

Some would say it was just a stone.  Technically, they'd be right.  But meaning has never lived in the object.  It lives in the intention someone puts into it and the way another person receives it.  I spend a fair bit of time helping people find meaning in symbols (a candle, a ring, a handful of earth), so perhaps I'm primed to notice.  Or perhaps the stone would have found me regardless.

I'll never meet the person who left it.  I don't know their name, where they were heading, or what moved them to do it.  Yet I feel connected to them all the same.  Two strangers, linked by a pink heart in Balmacara.

Leaving love where I found it

When we packed up the next morning, I picked the stone up, held it for a moment, and put it back where I'd found it.  It wasn’t mine to keep.  Its job is to greet people, and it can't do that from the bottom of my handbag.

I hope whoever pulled onto that pitch after us felt what I felt: noticed, cared for, a little lighter.  I hope they left it for the next person too.  Somewhere on the west coast, a whole line of strangers could be greeted by the same stone, and not one of them will ever meet.  I find that rather wonderful.

So, to the kind soul who left love on our pitch, thank you.  You'll never read this, but it landed.

And, dear reader, if you ever find yourself with a spare stone and a wee pot of paint, you know what to do.