Strangers in the Day

Exchanging glances

I’ve started this essay and deleted it three times. I can’t decide what I want to write about even though I’ve been thinking about it for days. The longer I go without landing on anything - the closer I get to Thursday when I have to hit publish again - the more stressed I get. That’s how it’s been lately, nothing is really flowing for me. I’ve been working on my memoir - I seem to be able to do that - but I’ve been struggling with what I want to share with you here. It’s not even that - it’s more that I want to share something that might be helpful or hopeful and I keep getting sucked down the rabbit hole of whatever this world is currently. Then I claw my way out and try to get something going, and struggle again after a couple of paragraphs. The struggle sounds like, “this sucks and is dumb.” It’s fun, you should totally try it. 

I  was going to write about this “nothing” moment I had probably five years ago waiting for the light to change on a corner in Santa Monica where I live. I can’t remember where I was coming from, just that I was walking home. I saw a woman waiting for the light to change on the other side of the street. She looked to be a good fifteen years older than me if I had to guess - I don’t know why I would have to guess, but that’s another topic. And I don’t know why she caught my eye or why I wondered about her life, but I did. I had this uncanny feeling we were alike, that I was getting a view of some version of my future self, weird as that sounds. When the light changed and we started walking toward one another, our eyes met and we didn’t do that thing where you look away from a stranger. That’s a very New York thing to do, and you do it fast, like you’ve signed a social contract about it. The same kind of contract you sign but don’t sign when you walk by a construction site as a young woman and steel yourself so you can at least act like you don’t hear the lewd and disgusting things that are being yelled in your direction, the same way you don’t expect anyone to intervene on your behalf. It’s also a human thing to do, but for whatever reason, neither one of us wanted to do that. We just held each other’s gaze and her eyes were so full of light and life and wisdom I really didn’t want to look away, and I really didn’t mind if she saw me not wanting to look away. We smiled at each other. It might be the most knowing smile I’ve ever shared with another person, because there wasn’t any context. I hoped she felt as seen by me as I did by her. I thought she did as we passed one another, that she was probably smiling to herself the same way I was smiling as we continued in opposite directions. Once in a long while a thing like that can happen - you can connect with someone on the deepest level if you let yourself and they meet you there. 

Photo credit: Sergio Azenha

I never regretted that we didn’t speak, laugh and say hi, or go and grab a coffee. The moment was perfect and complete exactly as it was, and so oddly full of importance I can still feel it all these years later. Maybe she never gave me a second thought, or maybe she’s writing an essay about that moment, too, right this minute, somewhere in the middle of Puglia or Tallahassee or Staten Island. Maybe she still lives in Santa Monica, or maybe she never did. She could have been visiting her grown child, or she might not have had children. She could have been here on business or to see the ocean for the first time. She could be anywhere right now, doing anything. She could have died, though I really hope she hasn’t. She’s still alive for me, regardless. If my life flashed before my eyes, I wonder if I’d see her. 

My son is graduating from high school on Tuesday. Today was his last official day of school, the last time I’ll get up and pack him a lunch not because he needs that, but just because I want to, the last time I’ll hug him and kiss his cheek and tell him to have a great day as he walks out the door. In September he’ll be living in a dorm far enough away that I’ll need to get on a plane to see him. A short flight, but a plane-ride, rental car and hotel-stay away from the kid who burst my heart so wide open it never closed again. The kid who carries with him my entire burst-open heart and every hope and prayer I have that life will unfold in front of him in all the best ways, that he will be safe, that he will experience joy in every way, and that he will show up with the best he’s got, which is the best there is. Yeah, I’m writing through some tears. You would be, too, if you were me. I bet there are people who want to tell me he’ll be back at Thanksgiving, and again over winter break, our relationship will expand and open and there’s nothing to fear. The thing is, I know that, I’m not afraid. I’m excited for him, he’s ready for the next thing. And I’m also grieving the part of our story that is coming to an end. The part where we live under the same roof and I see him every day and his sister gets mad if he’s in the bathroom too long, but is going to miss him with all her heart. The part when they were little, banging pots and pans and wooden spoons on the kitchen floor while I cooked, the part where my son would wander out in his pajamas sleepy-eyed and cranky, telling me his sister was whispering the storyline of Wild Kratts they’d seen that morning, playing all the parts herself, and keeping him up. Aw man, I’m going to miss the whole thing. 

You’re not crying, I’m crying.

Maybe this is why it’s hard to write an essay at the moment. My whole heart is stuck in my throat and the world feels fragile and rage-full and I feel vulnerable whether I want to or not. People write things on the internet that are batshit insane as though they’re facts, and people in the comments believe them without fact-checking, without even doing a google search, and I scroll by when I can, and push back when I feel I really have no choice. My son asked me what I did today and I told him I saved democracy in a Facebook thread and we both made the same kind of weird laugh-grimace at the same time. I wish I could save democracy by calmly presenting links to articles and videos that disprove the thing a person has decided they’re going to believe, facts be damned. I wish I could hit the reset button and make the world a beautiful place for everyone. I wish a lot of things, but here we are. 

It’s hard to write essays at the moment because I feel overwhelmed by sadness and grief and intense love and vulnerability, the fragility that comes after you lose both parents in a whirlwind of stress, shock and exhaustion in a matter of three years, the knowledge that everything is changing as it always does, and there’s never any solid ground to stand on, no matter how firmly we plant our flags. We plant them in nothingness. I’m this kind of person we tell ourselves. I would never do that. Until we do. When I was a child, and then a little older, when I hit puberty and then my later teenage years, when I went out into the world as a young adult and for many years thereafter, I kept envisioning stability in my future, if I could just figure out how to make it happen. I craved certainty after growing up in constant chaos. I wanted to create something solid, permanent, steady - something I could count on. I thought if I did everything right, then I’d end up in some scenario where love flowed freely and at a certain point I’d be able to relax and coast for the last thirty or forty years, hahahaha.

Now that I’m in the middle years of my life, it is abundantly clear to me that love can flow freely, and it certainly does if you let it, but there’s no coasting in life because you’re never done growing. The idea I had when I was twenty-five, that surely by the time I was sixty or seventy I’d know myself and have the big things decided? I now realize at fifty-three that’s the fastest way to make a beeline toward death. If you’re alive, you’re going to continue to evolve and change and hopefully, surprise yourself. If you want to find steadiness, you’d better find it inside, that’s the only solid home you’ll ever have. We’re never done until we exhale for the last time, and even after that, who knows? If nothing else we go back into the earth, we head out into the ether, we rise up toward the sun and the moon, we return to the star-stuff we were before we arrived on this insane, incredible planet full of scared, hurt, beautiful, flawed, creative, tortured, hilarious, haunted, generous people. Love your heart out every chance you get. Love your people all the way, every day. And if you have it in you, be ready to love a stranger on the street, and carry her with you in your heart all the days of your life.

If you’d like to meet me in real time to talk about embracing uncertainty and meeting love wherever you find it, I’ll be here 6/7/24 at 11:15am, or you can wait for the Come As You Are podcast. Thank you for being here, I appreciate you so much.