It’s one thing to plan to meet up with a friend. It’s another to go to your favorite bakery on Saturday morning and see what happens after settling at the corner table for four, with just yourself for company, and tucking into your caramelized onion quiche and pour-over coffee. It feels like going off the grid somehow. With the heart-shaped brownie to go and a 15% tip, your tab comes to $17.20. You don’t feel elated about inflation, but here you are.
Your life is a perpetual question of others: “Will you be
there for me?” The answers vary from resounding yes-es to indirect no-s. Rarely
does someone reject outright the bid for connection. You remind yourself you
aren’t alone in the world. You have connections. Even if those connections are often
transactional.
Young moms with toddlers straggle in. A couple with an infant in a car seat enjoying their nacho danishes (a Father’s Day special that sounds less than appealing). A little girl clutching two naked baby dolls, one black, one white. A burly Russian man with an American flag ballcap in the corner talking construction timeframes with an American client. An older couple at the next table with a boxed coffee cake to go. It’s not as busy today, but there is a steady stream of customers. You notice most people don’t stay more than 15 minutes. They eat, they drink, they leave.
What is the rush? What would
happen if you stopped to talk to the people at each table? You file the idea
for future implementation. You know that Joe Keohane, author of The Power of
Strangers, would say “do it.” You’re feeling brave but not that brave.
You feel a perpetual lack of community. Loneliness is the real epidemic, if you listen to the Surgeon General. You tell
yourself is your own fault. You get overwhelmed and you duck back into your
shell. But then you realize it is not even 9 a.m. on a Saturday and you have
already had several serendipitous encounters. And this is more the norm than
the exception, not just on Saturdays. You’ve been on a walk with your dog and
talked to A. from Sweden and petted her dog Bob and told her about this bakery.
A perfect spot for fika, you added.
Coming up the hill from the swan pond, you waved at A. from
Thailand from across the street. Your dog adores her so you crossed and talked for
20 minutes. She didn't have dog biscuits. Your dog flops on the grass,
resigned. You asked her how she met her husband. Friends set them up. She had needed
a green card and getting married had seemed the easiest way to get one.
You look up every few minutes. This is why you aren’t one of
the people who makes it a regular practice to work from cafes or read in the
airport. You’d rather observe people and try to sort out their relationships
and tastes and values. What are their stories? You see these playing out in real-time.
You're writing in your journal now. Glancing around, you see someone you think you recognize. Is that J.P.? you wonder, peering at the people lined up to pay. A book under his arm. Earbuds in. He is turned away. It has to be. It is.
He
finds a seat at the bar in the front of the dining area. The tables are full.
You wait until he gets up to claim a table for two in the middle of the room to
go say hello and ask about his seminary class that met this week.
You return to your own corner.
You go back to writing. A quarter of an hour
passes. The Russian in the corner mentions steel beams. It’s not just the
accent but the tenor of his voice. It reminds you of the men in cafes in
Athens. Except you didn’t understand enough Greek to know if they were
discussing construction for the 2004 Olympics or Aristotle’s ideas of
friendship and virtue in the Nicomachean Ethics.
You hear J.P. call out, “E.G.!” and another acquaintance walks
into the room. You overhear them. J.P. is reading a Russian work; you don’t
catch the title or the author but gather that he thinks it sublime. E.G., is
listening to Copeland’s Appalachian Spring.
You want to join their conversation, or at least eavesdrop
for a while longer, but you think of gender and institutional politics.
But the elation you feel at seeing such acquaintances overrides
the potential awkwardness. You gather your tray and stop to greet E.G., who has
deposited his stack of reading material on J.P.’s table. You want to read the
spines without appearing obvious. You ask E.G., if he is still singing (because
the last time you were in the same place at the same time was five years ago
for a chorale concert). You’re glad to hear he is. You wish J.P. a good
weekend.
If the first five minutes of their interaction is any indication, the two of them will enjoy a conversation that goes beyond small talk. You will walk away, assured that your experiment, call it Project Serendipity, has been successful. These encounters feel like the best thing about your life. You think Buber is right, that all real living is meeting, even if you don’t always stick around for the conversations that follow.
Photo by Najib Kalil on Unsplash
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