Talking to strangers

It's a radical and creative act.

Iowa spring, what are you doing? First you’re hot, then you’re cold, then a fertilizer spill killed every fish in a 50-mile stretch of the Nishnabotna. Sorry, not sorry, Dead Zone! No charges filed!

But wait, there’s more! Iowa is a lot less welcoming than our Heartland nickname suggests, after legislators proposed a ban on same-sex marriage, though Iowa was among the first in the nation to celebrate same. A new “religious freedom restoration act” will fairly legalize discrimination against our LGBTQ+ family, women seeking health care, single people, and anyone who didn’t step out of a mythical American Gothic painting. We’ve got real problems around here (it snowed in April!) and we’re legislating against love and human commitment? In short, spring is giving senseless. A few times last week, it was tough to get out of bed.

So I accepted a coffee date with a stranger.

The digi-verse is full of (good) jokes about the merits of avoiding people. Some days, I relate. So when my pal texted about meeting with someone who’d read my first book, I cued up reasons to pass. Semester at full-bore. Fridays are busy. I don’t like people (ha, ha). There was that fish kill.

The antisocial meme-iverse is vast (and funny). (Source: Pinterest)

Still, as the date approached, and the can’t-get-up feeling got can’t-get-uppier, a little hummingbird voice told me You must go. I could not let myself out of it. The day arrived. And I went.

I am bad at small talk. I dread it. The weather is clear to all of us, and a quick scan of social media can easily confirm the ages and locations of our children. Why must we speak these things in real life? I hated my privileged self for considering chatting over a flat white in a fig-treed atmosphere as an insurmountable challenge. But a heavy heart will do it to you in mysterious ways, my friends.

Right from the start, the conversation wasn’t routine. The coffee joint was one I’d not visited (I love that). The windows were tall, mullioned, and old, letting in a soft grey light that made the ordinary world seem blurred, which matched my inside self. Then, so did the conversation. It was searching and far-flung, touching all corners of the country plus the room we were in. We talked about wilder days and the creative moodiness of age. We talked about all the ways to mother, and how the world seems scary until you actually get into the world. Then it’s just different than you thought it would be.

I gave over to the process of meeting someone new, and it made me more inquisitive and more thoughtful about my own responses. Because strangers have not known you up til now, and the You of Now, is a different You. Right? It was unusual telling my story as if I were starting it Now.

Talking to strangers has activated me before. I once hitched a motorcycle ride through the mountains with a stranger and we screamed stories into the wind and, though the sun was out, it rained. I trusted a stranger and together we entered this bubble of exuberant weirdness. (We all know the other way that story could’ve ended, but this was before true-crime podcasts.) I never tire of telling the story. Which makes me think, it’s still magic.

Once I held hands with a stranger on an airplane, and she distracted me with stories about her kids as we flew in a tiny buzzing single-engine through a thunderstorm over St. Louis. We lived, the pre-flight Xanax prevailed as I did not have a heart attack, and I still remember her hand’s soft puffiness.

I left that coffee date feeling glad I’d made it. I felt a little bit the same, but also something like lifted. Which was good, because spring is signalling work to be done.

There are epic winds in the forecast. As of yet, no charges filed for that fish kill (50 miles!). But, attending a retirement party on Tuesday, I was surrounded by a group of young legislators. They drank Busch Lights and toasted their elders then talked about stomping that evildoing legislation. Incidentally, they were also strangers.

Against my lesser instincts, I struck up a conversation.