You never know...you know?

"If you do not expect the unexpected, 

you will not find it, for it is not to be 

reached by search or trail."

 - Heraclitus 

Greek Philosopher

Reed was running late. It was the strangest of events that we were meeting at all.

In October 2023, I worked as technical support for a local play. We were looking for an LCD projector for some of the rehearsal work. After failing to find a reasonable one to rent, I called Reed, a computer and presentation whiz at the community college where I teach. As it turned out, he had a projector and would let me borrow it.

 

Even though we only needed it for a few rehearsals, Reed said to keep it until he returned from a trip in early November. Between the latter part of November and last week, I emailed and texted him frequently to see if I might get the projector back to him.

 

I had heard nothing from him until this past Friday morning (March 8th, for reference), when I got a text asking whether I could get the projector to him at 12:30 pm at our most western campus. West Campus is a forty-five-minute drive from my home. That was not a problem, but I had a 1 p.m. luncheon, making the timing unworkable.

 

I suggested an alternative to meet at a Starbucks on his route to school. It was thirty minutes from home, and catching him well before 12:30 would be early enough for me to do the handoff and return in time for lunch.

 

The above is foreplay…

 

I got to Starbucks early to eliminate any delay on his part. It was not a problem for me. I’m in a play in late April and had my script with me. It was an excellent time to practice lines.

 

I noticed a man sitting on the ground, leaning against the coffee shop wall near the entrance. I was thirty feet away on the opposite front side of the shop. He looked homeless and had a couple of backpacks on the ground beside him. 

 

Winter in Tucson is a haven for the unhoused. There are shelters to help and a temperate enough climate to survive even on the streets. The odd thing about this fellow was the two drinks sitting on the ground beside him. One was a plastic cup of water, and the other a ten-dollar café Latte. The other odd thing was that while he could have been sitting in the shade, he was sitting in the sun and was as red as a beet.

 

I was practicing lines when I heard, “Excuse me, do you have a dollar you could lend me?”

 

I have a policy about this.

 

“I won’t give you any money,” I replied. "But if you are hungry, I am happy to buy you something to eat."

 

“No, that’s okay. Thanks.” He turned and returned to his spot.

 

Reed was late, and I was curious, so I wandered over.

 

“What’s your name?” I asked.

 

“John.”

 

“I’m Ted.”

 

I asked where he was from. He said New Jersey but was living with his mother in Tucson. He had worked for several years after high school in a meat packaging plant but wanted to do something more meaningful.

 

“I decided I wanted to teach English as a second language,” he said.

 

This was my first surprise.

 

“Oh,” I replied. “Where?” Unsure what to expect.

 

“Russia. Most of my time in Moscow.”

 

My first thought…Sure you were. 

 

I’ve heard a few creative stories in my day, but initially, this one, coming from this fellow, was a little beyond the pale until I dug in a little deeper.

“Tell me more,” I said.

 

He described in detail the vetting process to get there, what it was like to live in the city, and how he had traveled to Latvia, Estonia, and Scandinavia during the five years he taught. Once he got going, he was articulate and had that look one gets when they turn on the playback of the recorders of their minds. You know, kind of like I wasn’t there.

 

He said he enjoyed the Russian people but had gotten ill in the last year. The healthcare system was free, but he felt he was somewhat antiquated (compared to the U.S.), and he came home because he wasn’t improving. After returning to the U.S., he got COVID, became a ‘long hauler,’ and was left with bilateral neuropathy in his feet (numbness and tingling). It hadn’t gotten notably better since the COVID. He could walk some but needed to rest. That's why he was sitting at the moment. He said he used to run, but that was no longer an option.

 

It was about that time Reed pulled into the parking lot, and we made the projector exchange. He was gone in a flash, and I had to leave to make my lunch date.

 

I told John he needed a hat. He said he lost his. I gave him mine.  Then I asked if he had access to a computer, and he said his mother had one. I gave him my email address and said I would enjoy hearing from him, being fairly certain I would not. After all, I was just some stranger who stepped into his space for a few moments.

 

On the way home, I wish I had had more time and the presence of mind to record our conversation on my phone. It made me think of all the brief, interesting, and unexpected conversations I have had with hundreds of strangers over the years. Many have been unexpected and added texture to my journey...but John? As brief as our chat was he was near the top of my 'interesting and unexpected list.'

 

Who knows what cometh…these small encounters delight me. In the future, I will have my phone at the ready…you know, just in case.

- ted

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flying by the seat of my pants...

“For the love of God – just once ask 

her a [meaningful] question.”

-   David Brooks, Author 

During the forty-plus years of my working life (I’ll include the military here), I flew over two and a half million miles. Most of it began in my late thirties through my early seventies. A few times, I flew in the isolated bubble of business class, but for the most part, it was regular service.

 

The airtime led to hours of sitting beside people I didn’t know. This, in turn, led to many anonymous conversations. Anonymous because some of the most curious things are shared when talking to someone who knows they will never see you again.

 

My mother was a significant influence in my life. While a quiet and thoughtful woman, she loved people. When she met someone she didn’t know, learning about them was a top priority for her. She made people feel like they were the most important person in the world. I used to joke that my mother could strike up a conversation with a telephone pole and make it feel like its job had meaning.

 

I inherited her endless fascination with stories people tell about their lives. There was a television police drama in the 1960s called Naked City. Each episode ended with the tagline, “There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.”

 

As per the above 'tagline,'' I found, over hundreds of conversations, unique stories, none of which were precisely the same. 

 

Over the years, I developed a series of questions that helped me know whether there might be a potential conversation. Soft ball queries – easily modified depending on responses. 

 

·      “Are you heading home or heading out?”

·      “Are you traveling for business, pleasure, or family?” 

·      “What do you do for a living?”

·      “What got you interested in your field?”

·      “Is this the only work you have done?”

 

After all, one cannot simply say to one's seatmate, "So tell me about your life, Mr/Ms stranger." 

 

The tenor of the replies let me know whether to continue to gently probe or go to work. 

 

Most of the time, if contact was made, it only took listening and a little nudging to slip into my seatmates' minds and stories. It was like they were tired of newspaper reporting, waiting for something more meaningful than; where have you lived? What's your job? How many kids do you have? The endless list of sterile "…just the facts, ma'am/sir" chatter. They wanted to be heard. They wanted to be seen. 

 

I became a voyeur, partaking of uniquely cultivated lives and journeys. It is incredible the things people share. Sometimes, deep secrets, failures, regrets, hopes, fears, betrayals, adulteries, joys, and hopes. There isn't much I haven't heard in a darkened airline cabin at 35,000ft (10,668m). The list is long, but the contents of the journeys make each story unique.

One of the consistent things I found over the years after the "hi, how are you?" people have life issues and want to find a safe place to talk and share. It turns out that quiet conversations with a seatmate can often provide just that.

 

The takeaway…

There is a primal human need each of us has. It is the craving to feel relevant, to believe we have a place, that our lives have meaning. We want to be heard. Christ said, "He that hath an ear, let him hear." He wasn't talking about the weather, a 15-second meme on TikTok, or the day's latest news. He was saying, listen, pay attention, and focus on the message.

 

In today's American culture, there is much to distract us…much labeling and categorizing people, reducing them to one-dimensional caricatures. And yet…and yet, none of us is a caricature. We yearn to be understood and appreciated. 

 

David Brooks, in his provocative book, How to know a person, suggests there is no such thing as an ordinary person. “[There is] a Central truth about what human beings are: a person is a point of view. People don't see the world with their eyes. They see it with their entire life.” He says:

“I’m no longer content to ask, “What do you think about X?” Instead I ask, “How did you come to believe X?”…Similarly, I don’t ask people to tell me about their values; I say, “Tell me about the person who shaped your values most.”

 

This is not complicated, nor does it require special training. It is the operational part of doing unto others what we want others to do to (for) us. It simply requires showing genuine interest in another person's story, which opens them up to reciprocate, to show a genuine interest in our story. Isn’t that what each of us wants? Isn’t that what helps to give our lives meaning?

 

It just starts with a bit of curiosity. It can be awkward initially, but that's what practice is for.

 

My practice? Like so many other things in my life, has come by the seat of my pants.

 

ted 

Coveting the Embers...

"...the traveler sat down by the side of that old man, face to face 

with the serene sunset; and all his friends came 

softly back and stood around him…"

- Charles Dickens: The Child’s Story

When we were kids, we spent part of our summers in Canada. My father took the month of August away from the church to the woods of Central Ontario and the crystal-clear waters of Lake Joseph. These were memorable family times. There were no phones and no television; we just had each other.

The family property sat along the southern shores of Whalon Bay. Along that shore was a broad and bare granite rock that gently sloped to the water. It was a perfect place nestled in the woods to safely build a fire near the water's edge.

We weren't the only ones on the family property during those times. There were cousins with their own places on the sides of the bay and folks that often dropped in. When a campfire was announced, plenty of family and friends appeared to cook hot dogs and roast marshmallows on small tree branches. While the fire warmed everyone, it was only the vehicle to bring us together. Sharing our lives with one another was what really mattered. 

In those days, I learned that the combination of graham crackers, Hershey's chocolate bars, and crispy marshmallows made the addictive treat called s'mores. The name suggested it all. One couldn't (or didn't want to) eat just one but wanted 'some more!'

Eventually, on those chilly Ontario nights with clear starlit skies, the fire would begin to burn down, leaving embers that were enough to please the eye but not quite enough to stave off the night chill. Folks would drift away one or two at a time to places of rest, satisfied with an evening well spent. When I was the last to leave, I would watch those embers until they were nearly gone, pulling my jacket closer against the nippy night air. Finally, water bucket in hand, I would douse a soft glow, leaving blackened ashes, the residue of a once brightly lit fire.

While these events are, by now, distant from my past, I've been thinking about those campfires lately, metaphors for the brightly burning glow of life that has warmed me all these years. I've thought about so many people with whom I spent time, sharing experiences, hopes, and dreams – remembrances that brought warmth to the chill of the approaching night air.

Some of those people who gave the fires of my life so much meaning have drifted away, and others are preparing to retire to their places of rest. And yet the embers still burn. They are not so bright, but still so meaningful. 

I am reminded by the quote of Lénonor d'Allainval, my life has been (and continues to be) "L'Embarras des richesses" (an embarrassment of riches).

I'm counting on the embers of my life to continue for some time. But I find I'm pulling my jacket a little closer against the impending night air. 

- ted

Books and Covers...

“There is no such thing as an ordinary person…”

-  David Brooks, How to Know a Person

 

As was her custom, she walked into the room early. This morning, she paused and stared into space for a moment. What happened next was anything but usual.

 

"That's Dvořák, isn't it? She said.

 

It took me a moment to gather myself.

 

“Yes, it is. How did you know?”

 

"I play the piano and love classical music," she said as casually as tossing off her jacket and heading for her seat.

 

I am in the habit of playing music before class begins. It sets a tone for students when they enter the room…a way to clear their minds. At least, it does so for me.

 

In the semester at a local junior college, I ask my students what music they listen to or what they might like to hear before class. It is one way to show respect for their musical tastes and provides me with a little insight into the culture of the young. 

 

There is little doubt that it has broadened my musical horizons. I've been exposed to Vietnamese rock and roll, Uzbekistan rap, Brazilian Indie, and my favorite, Hispanic pop. Their flavor of the day is a Puerto Rican singer/rapper named Bad Bunny. I don't understand the lyrics, but musical rhythms are universal in their appeal, and I enjoy them. 

 

There is also good science regarding the way music affects our minds. It can elicit emotional responses, regulate mood, reduce stress, and bond us socially and culturally, not to mention the pleasure it can bring. Think for a moment about music you have listened to that made you revisit your youth, making you want to jump up and dance (you know it's true - but I digress).

 

My musical interests are broad, so when students do not recommend something they are interested in, I play what I feel like. It might be country/western, South African protest, Indie, or, in the case of this particular morning, Dvořák because I find him energetic, a little whimsical, and a good mental class prepper for me.

 

Back to my coed…

Cassandra (not her real name) is a diminutive and quiet Hispanic student with long raven hair, piercing brown eyes, and a stature just a little north of five feet in height (1.5m). At the beginning of the semester, I thought she was not paying attention, as she mostly glanced down at her desk during lectures. That, as it turns out, was as wrong as my surprise at her knowledge of classical music. Her assignments were always on time, and she got 'A's on all her exams.

 

It gets better…

My classes last two and a half hours, more than any rational person could attend to the density of anatomy and physiology (or any topic for that matter). I give ten-minute breaks every forty-five minutes or so. Students usually leave the classroom for personal metabolic moments, but some stay and hang out. During that time, I get the chance to chat a little more informally with them.

 

One day, Cassandra was in a small group that stayed in the room during one of the breaks. I asked what kinds of books they read. With the significant, time-wasting effects of social media, I didn't expect much. 

Cassandra piped up, “Well, I read the classics.”

 

“So, what classics do you like to read?” I asked, unsure what to expect after learning her musical knowledge earlier.

 

"Oh, Charles Dickens, Emily Dickinson, Jane Austin. You know, writers like that," she replied with a disarming casualness.

 

“I’ll make you a deal,” I said, trying not to show my amazement at this side of her. “You recommend a book for me, and I'll suggest one for you."

 

An aside: I often ask people about books they enjoy. This practice has broadened my exposure to literature. I have gotten some great recommendations that I would never have thought of reading.

 

Cassandra recommended two books: Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey.

 

I recommended Amore Towles', A Gentleman in Moscow.

 

I must admit, I have carefully avoided books like Dracula because they are so dark…horror is not my thing. But for Cassandra’s sake, I worked my way through it. 

 

Northanger Abby, on the other hand, was a lovely nineteenth-century coming-of-age novel from the perspective of the young female protagonist Catherine Morland. It was nicely paced, and I enjoyed it. 

Without chatting about books on a break with students in the presence of Cassandra, I would never have read Austen…I would have missed another piece of her mind.

 

Is there a point here?

There are times when I have come close to losing hope for my generation and the generation in which so many of my students find themselves…extreme tribalism fueled by often damaging social media. As I look around, it seems there is less and less light around the world in the sunset of my life and the dawn of theirs.

 

And then there is Cassandra, a mind full of energy and intellect yet diminutive and quiet. It just took a little early morning pre-class music to open the 'book and turn some pages.'

 

One never knows what pearls lie in the fields of people's minds and, more amazingly, the unanticipated ‘music’ that finds them. 

- ted