It’s the People not the Places

A few weeks ago I traveled from Wisconsin to Washington D.C. to meet my aunt from Florida destined for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). Together we were on a mission to fill in details of our family’s history. About a year ago I mentioned a desire to one day go to the USHMM, she suggested we go together, and from that point forward she pushed me to find a week that would work best for me to be away from my family, which I do very rarely.

So, on our last night there as we were walking it took me by surprise when she said something to the effect of, “Thanks for making this trip.” I, in turn, took no credit and thanked her for making me find a date on the calendar and then buy a plane ticket. Her response took me by such surprise I’ve been processing it every since. “That’s not what I mean. You talk to people. I don’t talk to people.”

It was then that I realized she was talking about the homeless (I assume) man who was quietly panhandling outside of a Smithsonian museum who I offered an afternoon snack of a small bag of fig newtons to; it was the Indian woman (I asked if she preferred Native American or Indian) we shared the newly open doll exhibit with at the Museum of American Indian Art with; the security guards/police in front of the Capitol I asked what the sculpture on top of the building was, knowing that it wasn’t really Mary Poppins as I had joked; the restaurant employees at the “politically posh” hotel on Capitol Hill we stayed at to find out what they did with the glutton’s amount of leftovers from the breakfast buffet that there were bound to be, they are brought down to the employee cafeteria. That’s what she was talking about, among others.

So, if you ask me about my trip to D.C. don’t expect me to tell you about the monuments and memorials I saw and visited, because I’m going to tell you about all the interesting people I met and shared moments with while I was there. Want to know the best part of my 5-mile run around The Mall? The woman I met at the Lincoln Memorial; well, that and the warm weather and sharing my run surrounded by so many other runners just two days after the Boston Marathon.

I talk to people wherever I go. Strangers we pass are people we are sharing moments in our lives with whether we like it or not.

When I stop and think about why I take the time to share a conversation with people who others may not I can only come up with two explanations. 1) I am my father’s daughter and 2) It’s just who I am. Over the weeks I have spent time thinking about this and all I keep coming back to is that some of the most memorable moments for me are short conversations I’ve shared with strangers who happen to be in the same place at the same time as me. I have learned great things from people whose names I do not know.

Looking back at high school and college I can confidently say I had a hundred or more acquaintances, but only had a small group of close friends. Strange considering that I can remember being the shy kid hiding behind her mother’s leg on the first day of preschool. I never went to camp until I was 12 because I was too shy and worried about making friends, and even then it was only day camp.

Just a few hours after having the conversation that started this all we learned the history of the Old Post Office from the security guard working at the x-ray machine, who happened to be a retired military man, after I gave him a sample from Ben & Jerry’s. Following that encounter we talked so comfortably with a family from the Boston area while waiting for our tour bus that the tour guide didn’t split us between two busses because he thought we were all traveling together.

It’s a small world and I most enjoy discovering this by making the connections through talking to people. Besides, after all the scary things that have happened in our country since September 11^th wouldn’t you like to know about the person sitting next to you on the plane or standing in line waiting for the big event to happen?