Don’t worry, this isn’t a post about baseball.
My wife and I were shopping at Costco last weekend. I was wearing an old, faded Mets shirt, one of my favorites. Some guy about my age walked up to me and started talking baseball (prompted by the shirt I assume). This is one of the things I love about baseball, the ability for total strangers to just dive in and start talking about the game. There’s 130-ish years of American history inside baseball, and all sorts of regional history (most of the folks who start talking baseball with me are talking New York baseball). Childhood memories are often involved. It’s like religion without the trappings. It’s all about the lore, the stories, the history, the memories. And all you need in common is a love for the game. Not a specific team: I’m not talking about fandom here. I’m talking about a love for the game as a whole. It’s a community. The community of baseball.
The Costco guy was telling me that the Mets were losing 7-4. I was planning on avoiding the score and watching the game later, but he dashed that plan (while assuring me “the game’s not over yet”). We talked Yankees and Mets baseball, and the 2000 World Series, and the upcoming playoffs. After a bit we both continued on with our shopping. But the conversation stayed with me, and I watched the second half of the game when I got home anyway, knowing they’d end up down 7-4. They were. But they came back and won the game, one of the more exciting games of the year. I wanted to go find the baseball fan in Costco to talk about it!
Anyway. As I said, this is not an essay about baseball.
I take a walk nearly every day, during the warmer months. The road leading to my house is a gauntlet of driveways to apartment buildings, and during the time I walk, 4 p.m. or so, the traffic of folks coming home from work and school is starting to gear up.
Here’s the thing. It’s hot out. I’m walking. They are in air-conditioned cars, they’re just sitting there, listening to the radio. Legally, I have the right of way, but logically, I have it too. My experience as a pedestrian (and I walk much more than I drive) tells me that most people will pull their car up to the edge of the curb, right in the center of the crosswalk, requiring that I go out of the way to walk behind their car.
I don’t like this. Pedestrian rights.
But I am finding almost no one does that on my walks. A few times, yes, and those times have usually involved large pick-ups, and all the territoriality that implies. But during my walks, I will approach an apartment driveway, and look both ways. If there is a car waiting to pull in, or waiting to pull out, I will wave or nod to them. Nothing showy, just an acknowledgement. I usually make eye contact. And nearly everyone stops! I go my way, and then they go their way.
Again, this isn’t my normal experience. Only during my walks. When I try to clarify why people act differently during the walks, I get this answer: community. These are folks in my neighborhood, who may have seen me around before. They are driving slowly, residential neighborhood speed. Most importantly, they can see me and I can see me, and we are looking right at each other. They is a nod or a wave to acknowledge that they we are both actual living, breathing humans. I don’t view them as just another vehicle in a traffic jam, getting in the way between me and my home, or the rolling automotive life-support system for a bumper sticker I strongly agree or disagree with.
They’re just a neighbor. We are both just trying to make our way home.
I won’t try to draw too heavy a line between the baseball fan in Costco and the cars in my neighborhood. Both examples involve recognizing the people around you as part of your community, worthy of basic respect. The larger point here, if there is one, I will leave for you to tease out for yourself. The smaller point, which I am more comfortable making, is that I may be, in part, creating these moments myself. I now walk up to the driveway entrance expecting the car, if there is one, to wait for me. It generally does. When I wave/nod my acknowledgement, I am assuming they are doing the same. They might not be; they might be swearing at me, giving me the finger, muttering obscenities under their breath. But I don’t experience it. I experience my own reality, that we are living peacefully together in a shared community. Most of the time, if I can see inside the car, I get a smile or a return of the wave/nod. They are granting me the same respect I am showing them. We’re in this together.
It’s like talking baseball. Who doesn’t want to talk baseball? A lot of people, it turns out, but the key is being open to the conversation, and mindful of the small miracle created when two strangers can cross the gulf of anonymity to communicate with each other.
Peace.
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Commerce time. I am one of the many talented writers involved in the upcoming A Woman Unbecoming, from Crone Girls’ Press, an anthology to benefit women’s healthcare rights, with proceeds going to women’s health care and abortion rights. I don’t know if I like my own story, as it is WAY out of my comfort zone stylistically. But I wanted to capture the anger and shock I felt about the fall of Roe vs. Wade America. I suspect all the stories in the anthology are similarly raw and urgent and immediate. I look forward to reading them.
Buy A Woman Unbecoming. Available soon.
