The Bearable Lightness of Strangers

I like talking to strangers. On the street, in coffee shops, at the airport, wherever they keep ‘em. In fact, I don't even need to talk to them. Just a smile from a pedestrian I've stopped for or a wave from a driver I've let cut in front can do the trick. The other day I was backing out of the lot at my local panaderia, as this old Latino cat in a truck waited for my spot. He raised his hand in papal benediction, his brown eyed gaze so tender, it took my breath away. If he had needed a kidney, I would have given it to him. Long term friends can be nice too, but they know us. There's history there and quid pro quo. Strangers owe us nothing, and when we engage with them, the slate is clean, or even better, there is no slate, just me in my human suit and them in theirs, both of us wandering through the mystery, taking the time to acknowledge each other, and say, "Yeah, me too."

Some folks don't like to be bothered. They are from the “You don’t know me, so leave me the fuck alone” school, but I say, "Bother me!" Get all up in my business. Come do a cameo in my film. I like it random and reckless. What's strange is to think we need context to engage each other. But people are delicate. These spontaneous connections cannot be forced. When it comes to stranger engagement, you’ve got to let the game come to you. Though, to be honest, I can be a huge buttinski. Especially when I hear people discussing something I know about or have an opinion on. I figure they are just dying to hear my take; for their two-way discourse to become a three-for-all. I'm not a jerk about it. I can tell if my advance is welcomed or just tolerated and know when to back off. I'm not needy, or maybe I am, but what I'm needy for is some kind of todos simpaticos. The feeling that we are all pigeons from the same flock and no permission needed to coo and cluck at each other.

But even more than talking to strangers, I like being one. To be the outsider who finds his way inside, or doesn’t, nipping at my isolation like a flask. I dig the lone wolf freedoms of being unknown, then choosing the perfect moment to reveal my secret identity (me). I remember how I felt the first time I wandered through Rome. Not just a stranger to the people but to the streets themselves. That sensory flood of first impression. The ancient travertine truth of it. Looking out over the Tiber with “where the hell am I” wonder. I felt alive, increased, happily apart from. Homeless, but as a fruition word.

One afternoon, I walked into a salumeria and formed an instant guanciale bond with the proprietor. I ordered a sandwich, and just as he was about to cut the bread, he stopped, went into the back and returned with a different loaf. He gave it a sniff, me a wink and got to slicing. If I was a regular, he would have given me the other loaf, and of course it would have been great, but I had come to his church from distant shores and he wanted to bless me with his holiest water. But no one is a stranger in Italy. Italy does not believe in strangers. It’s all one opera, everyone singing their part. Americans make more of a distinction between private and public life. We don’t take it to the streets like they do in Roma. Or even like the Latinos do in LA, where they bring it hard to the calles.

On a Friday night in my neighborhood, the sidewalks are fecund with Spanish and meat smoke. They are grilling and frying and flattening fresh tortillas. There is familiarity by hunger, and the big pot of frijoles is five inches from your famished nose. Over at the cilantro tub, I go elbow to elbow with a gold toothed señora. It’s salsa politics and everyone’s an alderman.

I think about the difference between going to Taco Bell and this stand on Western Avenue. It’s the difference between going to a movie at the multiplex or to an off-off Broadway play. No. It is the difference between going to the multiplex and being in an off-off-Broadway play. I order in my ragged Spanish and feel like part of the orchestra. Taking a big bite of mulita, I moan my pleasure and say “muy rico,” the two words flavoring the food as much as lime or salt.

Around the corner, the night sidewalk is piled high with used furniture for sale: Beds, desks, dining room sets, wall units, the works. A mother with two children counts money in a splash of streetlamp as her husband Einsteins the relationship between a just bought love seat and the trunk of his car. How can we be strangers if I’m eating Christmas dinner on your old dining room table? How can we be separate when I am sleeping in the bed your daughter was conceived in? I smile at the mujer in charge. This genius of commerce who has turned the corner of Venice and Gramercy into her own personal Ikea. For her there are no strangers, only customers.

But the stranger is real. We need them, and need to be them. The stranger is a lightning rod and starting point for change. ‘They just showed up one day and nothing was ever the same’ is the through line of countless stories. The stranger as a synonym for what we don’t know about ourselves, but are forced to face. Borges said “We all run the risk of being the first immortal.” When we engage with strangers, we run the risk of them becoming our lover, our killer, our friend or enemy for life, and I, for one, am happy to roll the dice.