‘American Kindness’, an analysis.

There’s a particular brand of kindness I’ve noticed here and it’s so peculiarly American – wide-eyed earnestness, great teeth, confident and generous – that I’ve come to label it ‘American Kindness’. It’s initially quite disarming because

1. calm down I’m only browsing
2. that cannot possibly be real
3. maybe she was talking to someone behind me.

But it’s a thing; I’ve come across it all over and so have you, if you think about it. We’re well able to be kind in Ireland – generally the people behind shop counters are sound and the bus man usually says goodbye back to us – but in Ireland it’s laid-back, it’s certainly not over-eager and it may even lack confidence. But American Kindness? It’s confident, it’s big, it’s generous and, quite frankly, it’s pretty bloody charming.

Family relationships here differ to Ireland because once we stay in Ireland we’re always only a car-ride away from our parents, and them from us. Students come down at the weekend, kids see their grannies fairly regularly and Christmas isn’t particularly dramatic because we all hung out a few weeks ago. But America’s enormous and flights are expensive, and there’s a lot of loneliness floating about these parts. The hundred Maureens, whose business cards and phone numbers I have, all had something in common: their families were far away and there was a whole lot of minding they still wanted to do. I was the lucky beneficiary sometimes, but the point is that they often went over-and-above for me. After chatting for a while, I mentioned that I was hoping to catch a show at the Opry, Nan in Nashville spent twenty minutes on her own phone getting me a ticket and a ride for a show and a bus that was supposed to be sold out. When I got a lump in my throat because I had known a Nan when I was younger who the kindest woman anyone of us ever met, Nashville Nan came out around the counter and gave me a hug. When we parted she told me to mind myself and give her a call if ever I needed anything. So did Eileen on the bus in Memphis who gave me her phone number and her sister’s business card if ever I needed anything. Ken and Dana in El Paso would’ve let me move in with them if I’d wanted. All agreed that the time was long, and the house felt empty, but hoped to see their grandkids at some stage this year. Maybe American Kindness is basically mothering with a different name.

             Another subgroup of Lovelies were the people who just love their town and are as excited as I am… about me seeing it. It’s a real palpable local pride that I can identify with to an extent (I worked as a tour guide for a long time, and took delight every day in showing visitors Croke Park and ramming the GAA’s history down them) but I’ve yet to do for another what Christine in Memphis did for me. It was a Saturday morning and there wasn’t a bus or a streetcar to be seen so I popped into a coffee shop to make enquiries. Christine was working, we got chatting and she told me she didn’t want me missing a minute of Memphis so she called me an Uber, gave me a free cup of coffee and when I got to my destination it turned out the taxi ride was paid for (I sent her a card with money in it but that’s beside the point). And the generosity wasn’t just financial. A friend-of-a-friend in New Orleans sought me out to give me the teddy he’d caught from a Mardi Gras float so I’d have a souvenir to bring home. A man I went on a Tinder date with gave me a full three-day itinerary for the Grand Canyon because he didn’t want me missing a thing. Maurice the hot-air balloon operator kept us up in the air twenty minutes longer so he could show us the sun shining in a certain way over Albuquerque. I’ve come across plenty of generosity in other countries, but none as heartfelt as here.

And I should mention, none of these people were in positions that rely on tips!! Except the man on the Tinder date.

I’m joking. Anyways, ar aghaidh liom…

American Kindness may also just be a manifestation of good ol’ American confidence. I was in the sightseeing carriage of the train from San Antonio to El Paso, Tex. when George, a gruff, older heavy-set man, sat down and we talked for hours about travelling the world – he’d spent four winters teaching in Alaska, two years on the Orkney Islands, travelled south America and settled for a while in New Zealand and though there was much he didn’t like about America right now (Trump), there was nowhere in the world that could boast scenery like it. He wasn’t well he said, and was on his way from Maine to Portland OR where his family was going to take care of him. He’d a book of maps of America and asked me if I’d like it and even though I did that stupid (Irish?) thing of refusing the very thing I actually wanted, he shuffled off and twenty minutes later he returned with the book. We went through it and he pointed out scenic sites, comparing them to similar sites abroad but always deciding ultimately that the American version was better. He never said anything, but it was only when I was long off the train that I realised George is dying and he has no more use for that book of maps. Bur if he wasn’t getting any more use of this great landscape, he wanted to make sure someone else did.

This may just be a tentative (and frankly, shit) foray into analysing the American conscience, and the characteristics that can be said to define it. American Kindness, whatever it’s borne of, is not something that can be nailed down as it’s basically a notion but it intrigues and charms me in equal measure. It’s a lovely thing: it’s kind of hard to resist and it encourages reciprocity. I’ve started getting into it myself (I bet I’m a dose) and even if that’s only a momentary exchange, passing American Kindness forward is a powerful reminder of the power we have to brighten the days of others.