Passing People

 Sometimes it does seem as if we are every age we’ve ever been. When the Fire dept. showed up at my neighborhood “Safer Together” block party and let all the kids climb over their shiny red engine, I  regressed to a 9-year-old. Watch me catch a fish and I’m 12 again. Watching a baseball game with the Giants playing I become all ages. But in the last few decades of our lives, something decidedly different occurs. Expression of those differences becomes problematic.

Having spent the better part of my life as a high school teacher, I am comfortable around young people, especially adolescents.  Consequently, I often acknowledge them when walking in public, forgetting sometimes that they don’t think of me as a familiar, albeit trusted teacher they know. When that happens, I get either no response, a cold eye roll, or a rapid look away. Being perceived as a threat or inappropriate may be the last thing on my mind, but it frequently happens.

In fact, it seems lately that most people we pass on the street look away or don’t acknowledge your presence. Clearly, some will always smile or say good morning or afternoon, but they are usually the older folks. I’m not sure what this means, but it makes me want to greet everyone, especially a stranger, no matter how uncomfortable. 

Some years ago in Berkeley, California we had a resident known as the “waving man.” He lived on MLK St. a main boulevard, and would water his lawn and wave to the morning traffic. Soon people waved back. After a year or two of this spontaneous morning ritual, the waving man began to wear white gloves to make his waves more visible. They’d he was given a few pairs of day-glow orange or yellow!

He must be long gone by now, but his simple act of an unsolicited wave met a deep need. I know I always looked forward to passing his house on my way to work.

II

I’m finding that with age comes a narrowing of friendship. Last week alone, I had two close friends lament that they have very few friends anymore. One even looked at me and lamented, "You're it."  Of course, we survived, while some of our friends moved away. But those friendships that linger like an untended garden, often die. Even Facebook can’t help those ties. The statistics for people living alone in this culture are staggering. In 1940 one-person households averaged just under 8%. Today it is around 30%.  I'm not putting a value judgment on this fact, just noting that it is dramatically on the rise.  

Friendship takes work. It takes sacrifice too.