Last week I went to the Orpheum theater to check out the lotto to get tickets to Wicked. You arrive two hours before the show, put in your name and wait until they draw the winners of the $25 tickets. As I stood there waiting for the drawing to start at 6pm, I looked around at the other lotto participants. Everyone circled around as the announcer began to draw names. A mother and daughter sitting on their suitcases were the first to win, obviously tourists either on their first or last day of vacation. The crowd cheered as they went up to receive their pin and select their seats, then the daughter announced that it was her mothers birthday and everyone cheered again. Then a young guy in tight jeans and the long hair side sweep won, and turned from a college punk to a giddy little boy and again everyone clapped and the announcer continued. Then the older man in the flannel shirt and wrangler jeans with timberland boots and his wife in nearly the same outfit but accented with a brushed out perm (again, obvious tourists) won and the crowd cheered. My favorite winner followed, the eight year old hispanic boy and his father, he was so excited and as the crowd clapped his very white but crooked teeth were a glowing smile against his bronzed skin. Despite the fact that each person hoped that their own name would be called next, there was a genuine happiness for those who won each time. And although we were all strangers we clapped and cheered and smiled for the lucky recipients of the tickets.I thought to myself that when I am a lonely old widow that this is where I would come and immediately feel as though I have friends. I thought of the homeless man I passed on the street just around the corner on my way there, I'm sure he would have smiled when he saw that little boy when his name was called. There is something sweet about moments when the barriers between strangers dissolve and we realize that we are all in this journey together, it is not a competition but often a lotto of what life will bring. We should cheer on one another's good fortune, and if we do then the happiness we feel for others will spread into our own lives.
