Several readers who’ve not been around me long enough to know that I’m obsessed with and addicted to running deep with strangers in first meetings have asked what I mean by ‘running deep’ with outsiders. It’s a timely question and it ties into my seminary professor’s audacious idea of mortals finding ways to contribute to the humanization of the entire planet. Yep, the theme lives on! I’m just pleased to learn that some of you are still with me on the subject and others have refrained from having me committed.
I’m in an ideal location to contemplate the concept given the fact I’ve been living in another time zone and on foreign soil for a couple of months. My wife inherited her parents’ home in a small village in Norway. Sound like fun? We have neighbors in Phoenix who whine about having to drive two-and-a-half hours to their summer mountain cabin. So what, we have to travel two-and-a-half-days to get to ours!
Relating to strangers in town has not changed a whole lot since my first visit in 1965. Passersby on the street do not acknowledge outsiders until they are formally introduced. They’ll look at you but will neither nod nor say hello. I’ve passed them in the forest on a lone hike without a greeting. I was pretty ticked about such snubbing until I learned it’s a cultural custom. However, if I acknowledge them they will respond almost gleefully.
Here’s why the question regarding ‘running deep’ is a timely one. Four long-time dear friends from England and the states visited us this summer. I’ve wanted to introduce them to my favorite cafe for over 45 years. It’s a light-house on an island with an outside deck that overlooks the North Sea and a beautiful bay. Ah, and it happens to have the best pizza and beer in the entire world. I couldn’t wait to be there with them. It was a decades-long dream. I had assumed it might turn out to be the capping of great friendships because we’re getting to the age when traveling abroad is becoming a pain in the…. As we waited for the water-taxi to take us there I sat on a bench with a couple and a small child while my wife and our friends sat on a bench nearby.
“Are you from here?” That’s my clever opener with strangers seated next to me on benches.
“No, we’re from a town nearby,” the woman replies.
“Tell me about yourselves.” That’s always my second choice question. An unfamiliar soul will respond, clam up or depart. It’s the risk I take. I’m too old to settle for idle chatter.
“What do you mean?”
“Are you going to the lighthouse cafe?”
“No, we’re just letting our little one play here while we rest a bit.”
“OK,” I announce with a sense of urgency, “that means we have about five minutes to get to know each other before that boat leaves with me on it.” When complete strangers believe there will be an out within a limited time they’ll often dare to open up.”
I bombard them with “Pick one of the following questions and go with it if you will: ‘How long have you lived where you are; how long have you known each other; will you live there forever; have you ever opened up to a total stranger????’”
The man smiled and countered instantly “6 years in our home where we hope to stay for a long time; 5 years in a friendship; 4 years as partners and no to the final question about strangers.” She grinned, corrected him on the partnership status and uttered proudly “And yes, on getting to know a total stranger.” Her partner expressed surprise at that revelation and asked “When and where?”
“On a flight to Stockholm a couple of years ago and it was fantastic.”
“How about you?” she asked me eagerly.
“19 years in our house and we’ll probably remain there; 43-year marriage and a bunch of stranger-to-stranger plunges.”
We evidently felt too pressed for time to ask about our names.
He confessed “I don’t know why I need to tell you this but it seems OK to do so. I was married for over 30 years and I have four children.”
She revealed that she had been married for thirteen years and had a 10-year-old daughter. The three-year-old playing patiently beside us was their child.
By the time the water-taxi captain shouted “All aboard!” my wife and friends were already seated on the boat. “That means you too, sir,” the skipper added cheerily. I had forgotten about my loved one and friends entirely. I do believe a strangers can sense when we are unconditionally present to them.
I did not want to leave my new-found friends. In fact, I was tempted to tell them to go ahead, enjoy the pizza and beer and I’d meet them back at the dock in a couple of hours. I said to the former strangers “I’m as close to those five people as anybody else on this earth; my wife and the two cherished couples whom I’ve known for over 45 years, but I’m thinking I would like to remain with you for a while longer.”
Another warning with eyes on me but not so cheerily; “All aboard!”
I got up reluctantly, walked to the end of the dock, stepped on board and looked back at my bench partners. They whispered something to each other, smiled and mouthed ‘Don’t go,’ and I felt they meant it. I actually grieved the loss for a few minutes on the ride.
If that’s what my professor meant when he said we must choose to be humanizers on this planet then I get it. My hunch is I will remember those Viking earthlings for the rest of my life. It gives me great comfort to know that it is quite possible that when I draw my last breath images of my bench friends might pop up, a recall not unlike the church member’s experience cited in a prior posting whose final thoughts were of two riverside strangers.
Annie Dillard, the noted poet, has a great statement regarding such brief bonds. I’m paraphrasing a bit but it goes something like this. “When our brains fire their dying charges we will remember and see, not a familiar face but instead some solitary figure, a stranger, whose image the mind retains.” For the Time Being.
