strangers

sleeping in a stranger's bed at an airbnb, with torn sheets, and wondering whose hair is on the covers. oh yes, not a pleasant thought; I've usually been fortunate with airbnbs but these last two were uncomfortable in different ways - this one should have at least pretended to be clean, and the one before had a cozy and clean bed and bath but with the strangest empty rest-of-the-house (such that hubby just didn't want to step out of our room and not go straight out the house). two other strangers visiting/living there, and me one morning coming across another stranger in the kitchen gathering food and walking straight out the back door, leaving me wondering if he was a thief (he wasn't).

travelling in some ways means getting out of your personal zone. but its not just travelling, these last two weeks have left me sensing to an elevated extent my contacts with people (and animals) I know I will probably never see again.

from the young girl with blue hair who gave me a haircut before my trip and chatted with me slowly and softly (so unusual compared with the over-enthusiastic and full of compliments hairdressers I often get) about her mom and her own unawareness regarding her mom's schedules and holidays, about her long distance relationship and how people didn't often get why they were so cool, about coloring and bleaching hair, about her stepdad and traveling, about avoiding questions and coming back to them. to the energetic barking dogs who scared away hubby and kept trying to frighten me and getting frightened by me in turns, when I tried to take a random worn path after stopping randomly by the roadside in a small village by the river. to finding myself sitting next to a crying girl at the airport talking into a phone, after realizing (looking up from my tablet book) that she and I had been sitting around in a near-empty airport, obviously both of us spending more time than usual waiting for a plane; having forced to overhear much of her conversation with her mom and some friends narrating her story of cancelled flights and missed opportunity and venting her frustration, between sobs and angry tears. me wondering whether I should offer her some of my Mexican chocolate (that in turn made me wonder about the hands that hand-craft chocolate, esp. when we bought some from a local shop on the highway from the man who claimed to have made them; mashed-in thoughts of the documentary I had recently seen about the fermentation of cacao and the process of chocolate being made; all those hands of strangers touching those beans, making that chocolate that is playing on my tongue, plus these Mexican & New-Mexican ones don't melt so soon - I sort of got back to liking chocolate after many many years - dark, hand-made chocolate) to cheer her up, but only wondering.

to the short one-two line conversations with fellow gawkers at an art exhibition where I would say it was the artist's intent that we talk. "what do you see?" everyone asking each other, me talking to this guy, probably the only other person there, who like me, was scribbling some stuff down, more organized than me - he had a little diary, and he like me, walked back to pieces he had already seen, studying, comparing, trying to fathom something at least of what would have been in the artist's mind. Pollock is not an easy artist to view, and I don't think I enjoyed any solo artist exhibition so much ever. strangers coming together in those halls, scratching their heads to find meaning, in life, in art, in chance meetings. me wondering if any of these past chance encounters could ever become lasting friendships if anyone tried.

watching the crowd returning with me in the evening train, drunk and happy on St. Paddy's day celebrations (I had preferred Pollock) - a couple of separate women puking it all out, a different couple of them (together and sitting next to me in the train) observing aloud how much she had enjoyed watching "all these idiots today".

me watching people, a cat on a leash at a colorful park in golden weather, noticing just one other guy alone like me, munching on my gooey-butter cake wondering again about the hands that made it. thinking back to the forest ranger who gave us his recommendations about hiking trails some days ago around petroglyphs, his smile, his "my favorite is... ", me wondering if I'd want to know him better some day, or if I'd want to be in his place - watching strangers walk in every day every hour asking to buy maps, water, chocolate, hats, and asking which is my favorite trail.

that woman on a trail when we heard those inhuman voices in the distance, shouting out to us, that they were coyotes, probably killed a rabbit, "they have to celebrate". that couple, hiking up abandoning the trail, up up on those black cooled lava rocks, to the top of the table of the black plateau, the guy giving his hand now and then to pull the girl up, me clicking them sitting up there together, kissing, against the blue and black of the sky and land, wondering if I would go up there if I was younger or if hubby was a little more adventurous (most places where I do climb up I see him as a tiny fleck down below) and yet somehow strangely satisfied (satiated) with where we were, walking in the desert, me looking out for those holes in the ground - so many of them - rabbit holes, lizard holes, or maybe rattlesnakes. so comforting that where nature finds rattlesnakes, it also grows antidote herbs that were found and known by americans long before America.

through all this, reading Teju Cole and his meanderings through NYC, mostly alone, bumping into strangers, much like me, thinking, talking, keeping and taking away.