strangers

I have about a dozen stranger friends. In my solipsism, they seem to have only one place to be, one job to do, frozen in my own little snow globe. But I know that isn't true. I know they don't always wear a certain style of dress or uniform. I know that they have bad days, can get angry, and sad, and aren't always smiling and waving.

Still, seeing them delights me.

There was a time when New York was very lonely to me. I rode subways to nowhere. I went to bookstores until they closed and coffee shops until my eyes were closing. I remember one Saturday night standing with a bunch of spectators watching street performers in Union Square. I had nowhere to go and no one to talk to, but I didn't want to be alone.

But I've brought my world closer to me. I have a lot of very real friendships and I also have these stranger friends with whom I share a type of friendship, something so frail and surface-y on inspection, but still satisfying. When I catch one of these stranger friends on the sidewalk, or behind the glass of a store, or in the walking a dog, looking at me and catch myself looking back at them, I feel cared about and missed and important in a way that maybe isn't quite normal. Whether it's need or greed or just plain gratefulness, I can't really articulate. Some piece of me connects with some piece in each of them and it sparks.