Recently, I stood on the subway platform waiting for my uptown train, straining my ears for the last notes of Saint-Saens Le Cygne – a beautiful piece I can play and listen to for hours. My eyes wandered through the crowd of people transitioning from day to night and I lingered on some, here and there. I often think of how we know nothing of each other but we share these few minutes of our day together. Perhaps our eyes cross paths for a brief, lingering moment before we quickly kick ourselves into formality and focus our attention straight ahead…above the head of the guy next to us…beyond the train car to the whirling subway walls racing by…
I laugh sometimes at how hard we silly people work to maintain a disconnect.
Last Sunday I sat at brunch and unconsciously found myself in a stare-down contest with a toddler. This baby had me pegged but she had no idea with whom she was dealing. “Alright, kid,” I thought, “two can play this game.” I failed to take the typical course of action and subvert my eyes to ignore the child. And this poor little girl had no idea of how to handle such a thing. She defiantly stared at me, she shook her head, she banged the table, she screamed out. Her mother apologetically mentioned that her daughter wanted me to hold her. Perhaps.
There are some lovely social conventions that we as a society hold dear. I must admit that someone staring at me can send shivers down my spine. But, there is also something to be said for being open and actually seeing what is in front of you…holding someone’s glance long enough to say, “I see you. I know that you are here.”
As I linger on the subway platform listening to the local artist hawking his wares, rocking out to the genius kid who realized being a DJ in Union Square is beyond brilliant and stealing glances with my fellow riders who seem to share my same quest for a little more conversation, I wonder if it all just comes down to that driving passion of mine to understand humanity as deeply as I can. I want people to come together. I want us to realize that a shared beauty envelops us and that we can help and encourage each other with the only motivation being that it’s the right thing to do.
The whole concept of connection blows my mind. It’s just so simple and yet…it’s sometimes more than I know what to do with. We steal glances…we banter…we share smiles of common experience…and then we keep going. For two or three days, two or three hours, two or three minutes, two or three seconds…we dance in and out of each others’ lives.
And then again…maybe not. Perhaps we decide to not be afraid of realization and acknowledgement.
We let go of supposition and predisposition and everything of yesterday.
We join hands with the person standing beside us and say, “Hello you. Hello world. Here I am. Here you are. Here we are.” We smile at each other, squeeze our hands tighter, laugh in shared joy and then step off together for one helluva ride.
And beauty happens.
Soundtrack: A little Radiohead sprinkled with Smashing Pumpkins and silence.
Lessons from Icarus 
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