Of course, we meet new people every day, all the time, in leaps and gulps.
(I'm a bit like the hermit dragged to Sunday market. A bit like a lump of lead thrown into the lake. A bit like - well, you get the idea. Except, I discover that it's fun after all and even when it's not, it's still all right.)
Encounters: a woman talks to me standing so close that we practically share one breath. Sentence after sentence I am being choked, resuscitated, choked.... 'Mmh... mmh..' I punctuate her story with small and fading yelps. I shuffle backwards very slowly, trying to make it look as if a moth might have unbalanced me with the whoosh of a wing. She steps forward with an obliging smile and we're back.
The next woman I talk to (at a comfortable distance) raises one arm between us and makes it as long as her bones and ligaments could possibly stretch. I note that she has grown her nails too, as far as they'll grow. 'Don't come closer, it makes me uncomfortable' - she actually says this. I should introduce her to my other friend.
In another conversation I drop a word that might -might!- be considered offensive if you lived deep in the Bible Belt, or during an Inquisition witch hunt. My interlocutor stiffens as if hit by an icy shower. 'That word, that word (she cannot say the word but mimes something like a gnarled and poisonous garden gnome) please don't ever say it again.'
And then another woman teases me for a little faux pas; I rush to give her a hug - before I even touch her shoulder with a fingertip she shrinks and practically runs away across the lawn as if I were from the DghjnxJ^N2 Galaxy whose aliens, everyone knows, are poisonous and boiling to the touch. I am left to do an awkward half-lunge in the grass, trying to recover some dignity by hugging an imaginary friend and looking delighted with my own charade.
It's all right though. Someone comes over at once, to say goodbye - consisting of a successful rugby tackle, followed by bear hug and wet kisses on both cheeks.
And so we keep going, in this small pond, rubbing against people, finding the lines that make up the others - their edges and boundaries. What makes them tick, what makes them gag. Always a surprise.
And in the process we define ourselves as well. There, reflected in other people's eyes, we catch a glimpse of who we are, what we do. Hug people. Say silly things. And see who stays for more.
(I'm a bit like the hermit dragged to Sunday market. A bit like a lump of lead thrown into the lake. A bit like - well, you get the idea. Except, I discover that it's fun after all and even when it's not, it's still all right.)
Encounters: a woman talks to me standing so close that we practically share one breath. Sentence after sentence I am being choked, resuscitated, choked.... 'Mmh... mmh..' I punctuate her story with small and fading yelps. I shuffle backwards very slowly, trying to make it look as if a moth might have unbalanced me with the whoosh of a wing. She steps forward with an obliging smile and we're back.
The next woman I talk to (at a comfortable distance) raises one arm between us and makes it as long as her bones and ligaments could possibly stretch. I note that she has grown her nails too, as far as they'll grow. 'Don't come closer, it makes me uncomfortable' - she actually says this. I should introduce her to my other friend.
In another conversation I drop a word that might -might!- be considered offensive if you lived deep in the Bible Belt, or during an Inquisition witch hunt. My interlocutor stiffens as if hit by an icy shower. 'That word, that word (she cannot say the word but mimes something like a gnarled and poisonous garden gnome) please don't ever say it again.'
And then another woman teases me for a little faux pas; I rush to give her a hug - before I even touch her shoulder with a fingertip she shrinks and practically runs away across the lawn as if I were from the DghjnxJ^N2 Galaxy whose aliens, everyone knows, are poisonous and boiling to the touch. I am left to do an awkward half-lunge in the grass, trying to recover some dignity by hugging an imaginary friend and looking delighted with my own charade.
It's all right though. Someone comes over at once, to say goodbye - consisting of a successful rugby tackle, followed by bear hug and wet kisses on both cheeks.
And so we keep going, in this small pond, rubbing against people, finding the lines that make up the others - their edges and boundaries. What makes them tick, what makes them gag. Always a surprise.
And in the process we define ourselves as well. There, reflected in other people's eyes, we catch a glimpse of who we are, what we do. Hug people. Say silly things. And see who stays for more.
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