The Resting Rock

I’ve traveled the same roads most mornings over the last three decades, and I choose my time to leave the house every morning, focused on my own little world around me and the job I need to get done that day. 

During my morning commutes throughout the years, I’ve been aware of others whose lives I’ve passed in brief blips, but long enough for me to remark on the people I’ve crossed, seen their idiosyncrasies, and noticed their patterns. 

For a time my morning routine came in contact with a man at his desk in a second story corner window of a red-bricked building. His office light was the only one on in the building. All I knew about him was that he was an early riser who always wore glasses and a sweater. What type of work did he do?  

Along the same side of the street, in recent years has been a woman – a few years past middle age – at a bus stop in front of the cemetery. She’s always talking on her mobile phone as she waits for her ride. What news is interesting enough for her to share so early each morning? I consider different scenarios: she’s chatting with her adult child who lives out of town. She’s checking in with her elderly parent. She uses the free time to call a different friend of hers each morning. 

At another point in my commuting years, I’d pass a jogger on the sidewalk heading west on Main Street. She looked to be in her mid-60s, with close cropped salt-and-pepper hair, and large gold hoop earrings – an  accessory I found interesting because they were so big and dangly. She was always wearing a tank top and a warm, welcoming smile as passed the occasional walker on the sidewalk. As I drove along, brooding over the projects I was about to face at work, I’d see her friendly face and it would take my mind off my work for a minute as I wondered if part of her motivation to get up and jog in the early morning was to say hi to people.  

Further off Main Street was an older couple walking along the sidewalks of the corporate park. They both looked fit: he always wore a ball cap, she’d have on a golf visor, and their windbreakers matched. They seemed to have disappeared for a few years, and some time later, I finally saw them again, ambling much slower. He was hunched over, helped along by a walking stick.

On my end-of-workday drive, I’d go by a lanky elderly woman wearing a visor and a long denim dress. She’d be in various places along my route, which tells me she must have walked for miles. She was always pulling a roller luggage bag. 

Each of these individuals took up fleeting moments in the overall span of my years. Whether we’ve reflected on it or not, these fly-bys with other humans happen to all of us. Each of us is conscious only of the world we want to be conscious in, which is why moments like these are remarkable. We live our lives each day we get up, do our thing on our own, making our own decisions of the mundane: when and what to eat for breakfast; when to leave for work, which route to take, whether to stop for a coffee. We all get into habits and routines that fit our own needs and conveniences, but our decisions lead to moments when our lives parallel, align, and intersect with strangers for a very brief span of time. We’re doing things on our own, through our own choices, but there’s a strange sameness about it that ultimately links us, just for a second, then we go along on our own way on to other things, alone but together. 

Photo by Mathias Reding on Unsplash