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The Kindness of Strangers

The Kindness of Strangers

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During the last few months I’ve gotten to know a man named Pat, who is blind. I met him on the Metro. Our schedules are similar; we get on at the same stop and get off two stops apart. More to the point, we both change trains at Metro Center. This is no big deal for me, but quite a big deal for Pat, who must navigate the walk along the narrow platform, find and ascend the escalator (if it’s working), then get to the right spot on the platform to catch the Red Line train to his final destination.

While he can do this on his own with a cane, it’s much easier if someone helps him. And often someone does. More than most of us, Pat is dependent on the kindness of strangers. “I’ve met some wonderful people,” he told me this morning. “And some who aren’t so nice.”

Perhaps because he can’t see, he’s closely attuned to sounds. “Twenty years ago people used to talk on Metro,” he said. “They laughed and told stories and exchanged business cards. Now it’s quiet.” We talked about the reasons for this: Blackberries and iPhones, iPods and laptops.

The lack of chatter makes it harder for Pat to know where he’s going, but the lack of camaraderie isn’t good for any of us. It’s a still and stilted world we travel in — and I’m as much to blame as anyone, my nose in a book or my journal. But sometimes, when I’m lucky, I run into Pat. When I ride with him and we chat, the Metro seems a warmer, friendlier place.

Don’t we all depend on the kindness of strangers?

Missing Out

Missing Out

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Yesterday I talked with a woman on Metro. Nothing much, just a small conversation. But any pleasant exchange is a surprise when people are packed so close together. She was sitting on the aisle and the man she’d been sharing her seat with had just missed his stop. “I wish he’d told me that he needed to get out,” she said. I nodded politely. After all, I’d just taken the seat he had vacated. I was glad he was gone.

As she explained more, I learned that the man may have assumed she was getting up because she was putting her magazine away. He was trying to read her body language and (perhaps I’m making him more deferential than he actually was) save her from standing up sooner than she needed to. Was he, too, leaving cues about his intentions, cues that she wasn’t picking up?

But then she said more. “We have all this technology. We have email and cell phones and computers. But we still don’t know how to communicate.”

I would take it a step further. Perhaps we don’t communicate because we have the technology. It keeps our gaze down at our palm instead of outward, toward each other.