Talking to Strangers

 

                Honors Ninth graders are reading The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver. Despite the fact that, as my favorite table observed, “Our parents read her books!”  it’s been a popular for several years.   It is easy language, a solid plot, fairly humorous (although the humor of my favorite scene, where Taylor visits the late-stage hippie house looking for a roommate is lost  in time now), and morally sound. Small acts of heroism and friendship keep us alive, every day. And the discussion of sanctuary and immigration feels very relevant once again. That’s all to come, though. Right now, several of them are pondering the notion that people, in the pre-cell phone world just…talked to strangers. In bars. On the street. In stores.

               

                I read an article in the New York Times, today, about group chats. The author is engaged in many, loves the connections, and was considering all of the different levels of communication involved, for constant to occasional, and what it all meant for communities and society. To be in constant communication with all of your friends, all the time…when she turned her phone off for two hours, she had over 200 chats to read when she returned. She felt positively about the venture.  As someone who has yet to break down and acquire a cell phone, it sounded exhausting. During the course of one class period (95 minutes), I probably process that many different direct requests for attention – both from me and from peers, which I can, for the most part, ignore—but the rhythm of live interactions feels different. More doable.

               

                Yesterday, Mark and I went out for lunch at the local pub on Monroe. We were sitting in our window booth, eating French fries, when a middle aged man slipped into the booth behind Mark. He had the weathered face of someone who spends most of his time outside, a large bag of stuff, and a reflective vest. One of the wait staff greeted him quietly, “Hey Joe, you want a Dr Pepper?” He nodded and sat, peacefully muttering to himself, while he thawed out. Over the course of the next twenty minutes, all of the staff checked in on him. He was clearly a Regular. Right before we moved to leave, he woke up and called to me over the bench.

 “Sorry bout talking to myself,” he said.

“Sometimes that’s the smartest person in the room, “ I replied. He laughed and we exchanged clichés on the weather while we pulled out our gear. Talking to strangers in public places.

               

Heated Mattress Pad

 

Back in late October, I checked a very funky, very opinionated book of permaculture ideas from the local library—Build a Better World in your Backyard. He opined on all sorts of topics: saving urine for fertilizing plants, rocket stoves to heat the house, living with room-mates and hiring a housecleaner if you all cannot agree on standards of cleanliness. It sat on the bench for several weeks and we dipped into it regularly.  It was a fun read.

One of his theories was that you should keep your house pretty chilly and heat the locations where you spend most of your time to save energy. He had invested in a heating pad to rest his feet on under  his desk and an incandescent bulb to light his reading space because the heat from the bulb kept him warm as well.  Mark quickly picked up on the heating pad for the bed; the author does not heat the bedroom but does a prewarm of the bed each night.  Mark has been complaining for years about how cold our bedroom—and the bed—are. He has been known to wrap himself up in enough layers to survive the Alaska backcountry to read for half an hour in before falling asleep and his grumbles have been getting louder this year.

So, when I received not one but two Amazon gift cards, I broke down and ordered a heated mattress pad. It came a few days before Christmas and we put it on the bed when we changed the sheets.  I turned it on for about ten minutes before bed and…it is lovely. Relaxing. Comforting. Warm.  It may be better than a heated car seat.  We are thrilled.