love thursday: hellos

Photographed with Nikon D300, and my ancient 50mm manual lens.

Remember the scene at the very beginning of the movie Love Actually, when Hugh Grant's voiceover shares that one of his favourite things to do is watch people in the arrivals hall of Heathrow Airport, in London?  When I first saw that scene, I felt like the writers of the movie had somehow snuck into my head: that is totally my favourite thing in the world to do.  I even remember certain specific airport greetings:  two Muslim men who rushed through a ceremonial bow to each other before leaping into each other's arms for an emotional hug; a woman who'd clearly been away from her children for some time, who greeted them by sitting on the floor and clutching them both, sobbing happily.  One of the downsides of traveling after September 11th is that while waiting for your own flight, you can't watch people greet their friends as they walk off the airplane gangplank into the gate area.

I took the photo above one afternoon when Alex and I had gone outside to shoot flowers.  Suddenly, she saw her friend down the street, at about the same time her friend saw her.  They went running toward each other like one of those old movies -- and then they hugged, laughing and giggling.  I snapped away.

I really love hellos.

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Happy Love Thursday, all.  Please leave the links to your images and stories of love below -- and may someone give you a heartfelt hello today.