I will meet you on 7th Street
In my early childhood days, when my dad rode the Indian Mileage King “Bajaj Chetak”, I remember standing in front, pretending riding it, feeling like Wonder woman; with my hair flying like a superhero, getting lost gazing at people. I remember everything was slow-mo, at least in my head. I looked at them, observed them, and deciphered a story and a theory behind their behavior. I was always astonished by movements; the face, the eyes, the fingers. I guess I knew I loved watching people. The sweaty guy with the frying onion in his oily pan, the dime saving bargaining ladies, ice-cream licking kids with probable snot from their noses flavoring their cones, the holding hands, the loud headphones guy, the selfie takers, they are everywhere! With their electrifying short signals running across their brains; doing so much, affecting so much, creating so much, making them behave in a certain way. Somebody with a healing heart, somebody curbing their hunger, one worried about his paycheck and the other one finding an excuse to be saved by homework. Many with porno running in their head; satisfying their kink in some way.
That face so poker and the other a super smart coder. A heart breaker or a home maker, with their own world wars behind their smiles, crocodile tears for excuses. In short, faces are deceiving! But do we stop making friends, hiring people, falling in love? If it was so easy to categorize the stereotype, then getting fooled by people would have been impossible. So is it the interdependence that keeps our species going?
I love the way people affect one another, seems to be a decently vicious harmonious arrangement. They love us, fake us, and are the reason for our happiness and the cause of our pain. They bless us for prosperity and sometimes just leave us behind with only memories. The friend who is now distant, the ones whom I chose to keep away from, that somebody I used to know; are not around anymore! But once in my interaction radar, they all had their share of effect and interdependence towards me.
I have come across this complexity of human interaction several times in my lifespan until now. Some affected me deeply and some were supposed to only be deleted out of my memory. Maybe because they were hurtful and definitely not worth the investment of my time.
But this new acquaintance I have is far away from my circle of interaction.
Will I remember that guy from the coffee bean cafe at 7th street?
My new job and my recent phase of recovering from my broke economic state required me to travel by public transport. The idea was to save enough for an apartment closer to work, which is still far away from reality, for the credit card bills to pay, educational loan knocking at my door and fulfilling the habit of sour liquid consumption over the weekend, a method I acquired to enjoy my ‘me’ time.5 hours of my day are on the bus, train or foot, getting to and from the means of transportation I use. I see over a thousand faces every day, many catch my attention; I am talking about LA, it gets crazy as you can think. You may imagine it and you’ll see it.
I am a spectator to the daily lives of many people like me; the travelers, the passengers, and I have been meeting one every day. Right outside the train station, when I am rushing towards the every 7 minutes Expo line to Santa Monica, I exchange a smile and a good morning coffee toast with this unknown guy.
I don’t know since when, and till when in the day he does his thing. Staring at his laptop and scribbling on his notepad.
From the look of him, he does not come across as a student. Being able to afford Bean’s coffee every day, he is also not a Wi-Fi opportunistic. The scar near his left eye must have been from a fight, which confuses me with his gentleman’s hat and neatly ironed check shirt. Neatly ironed at 6:28 am in the morning, gives away his no companion in bed from last night. Then the nontraditional writer’s ink pen in his hands? Makes him a believer, follower or maybe an appreciator of some form of art in my head. Whoever he is, our relationship is: early morning smile exchanges and virtual coffee salute of his paper cup and my travelling mug.
It has only been a month of the vicious circle of greeting this stranger. There is no elucidation or title to our relationship, but do we have one? The effect or the capability to sustain my interest was understood when things went out of routine. Three days in a row, I didn’t see Mr. 7th street at his usual spot. Maybe I was early or late than my usual time, maybe he took a break, maybe found a new spot or maybe he had a flight? Or an accident?
He occupied my mind more than the usual 6 second smile exchange time I invested in him in my daily routine. I had no clue of his name or identity and he was still capable enough to make me curious of his absence. Why does that really happen to us? We notice or give importance once the thing, person or anything tangible is not really there anymore? The depth of a relationship is understood after the breakup, the cherishing of memories happens once you have lost a near one forever to the cycle of life.
Three weekdays and a weekend later, by now I was again self-indulgent in my daily routine, with no trace of Mr. 7th street in my head, until Monday morning rushing towards the train station, I saw him again! Same neatly ironed check shirt, sipping on his paper coffee mug, he was back in routine at the same spot doing what he used to. A nobody to me reestablished his existence in my life. I was thinking about him again, because he reappeared? Or did he ever leave? Do we actually ever forget people or just bury them in our subconscious memory for the experiences with them for that certain period of time?
Is it important to leave people behind? Well I guess we all will find time for the ones who make it to our filtered list. With time, age, maturity and all other permutations and combinations, we end up having only our favorite ones with us for life. The ones who invest in us and we reciprocate to them equally and only more. I choose the inspiring ones, the always excited and honest ones. It’s not stupid but smart to show exit door to the parasites and attend to the actual caregiver.
This stranger’s trivial impact and capability to gain my attention made me realize the value resource: TIME which I wasted on the unimportant, artificial beings. I would have rather wrapped series over series on Netflix! The right or the wrong ones; they all impact us, teach us life lessons, leave us a fool and in the best scenario, enrich us!
They say; to grow in experience and find a true companion, one ought to go through breakups, spend time alone and the big one - find yourself! Basically get kicked in the ass! And then the inner realization happens! Awareness of choices and the philosophy to containment only to make yourself happy is achieved!
How we all set things in motion for ourselves in this universe proves that Newton’s law is actually verified and applicable on living beings as well. I can change my travel path and never meet Mr. 7th street and be out of his interaction radar forever, or continue my daily routine and maybe become friends with him. It is a choice I will make to get affected either way by Mr. 7th street.
