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 11th 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?
