11:38.

Photo credit: flickr

"1.
What secret could you tell me
That would scrap away the glossy beauty of your anonymity
And make you commonplace, familiar.
What facts make you three-dimensional
Which parts of you do I get acquainted with
To know enough of who you are
That I fall out of love with the possibility of you.
What is your name?"
-- from "10 Things to Ask a Stranger" by Safia Elhillo.

I tend to create intimacy with everything that surrounds me. With the person whose thigh touches mine on the subway, with the man who owns the nearby dry cleaners and waves everytime I pass by on my walk to work. When I look at these strangers, I imagine their worlds, so vast, so complex, where I am nothing but a passing extra. I envision what they were like as a child, because shades of it can peek out through a half-smile, or in the way they laugh whole-heartedly at something on their cell phone. Sometimes I examine these strangers for all the ways in which a lover might find them beautiful. I wonder how often they hug, how tightly, and for how long. I do this with coworkers too, especially those who let me catch glimpses of their worlds that exist beyond the office walls. Coworkers who choke on words like biopsy and cancer and who, before I know it, find themselves weeping over our morning coffee. I think about wanting to break through those walls, of holding the hand of this crying man, or placing my hand on his shoulder. Instead, I place my hand on the table and listen. I listen as he cradles his face in the v-shape of his elbow and lets the tears flow. A few minutes of silence, followed by profuse apologies. No more coffee left in our cups and the walls go back up, each of us retreating back into our cubicles, into our own separate worlds. But I always make note of those daily connections that last seconds long, minutes long, where we sneak around the walls we keep up to prevent us from seeing someone apart from all the protections, hurts, excuses, guards, and weariness they may carry with them.