Gazing Into the Eyes of a Stranger

I met my mother and brother at a local restaurant for lunch today.

And while I we were sitting there, I glanced to my right, and noticed an older man and young lady sitting at a nearby table. The man, perhaps her father, appeared to be about my age. The girl, closer to 20.

As an unofficial “people watcher” I often muse about a myriad of things concerning those with whom I come into contact, but with whom I will likely never have the pleasure, (or lack thereof) to speak.

What are their names? Are they locals or just “passing through?” Does he or she work a blue collar or prestigious job? Will he, (as one restaurant patron once did in my presence) suddenly get up, and begin visiting the tables of those around him, shaking hands, and rattling on about Martin Luther King? Will she, at some point in my brief tenure here, pose a threat to some innocent bystander? What wisdom might he share? What story might she tell?

But just as I glanced towards that little “lunch for 2” table,

… our eyes met.

I found myself staring into the eyes of a lovely young lady, (and if later queried, she might have said, “I found myself looking into the eyes of a balding old man; wearing a gray goatee.”

Our eyes connected for the briefest of moments. But not unlike someone engaged in a traumatic episode, the “gear shift” of time slipping into slow motion, it was almost as if this gangly girl and I communicated some unspoken thing with one another; (the jest of which I can, at this stage, only ponder).

But as I have attempted to decipher some message, or take from there some unspoken, but almost communicated word, I find myself almost succeeding, but altogether failing in the task to which I have surrendered my thoughts.

And yet, it occurs to me that the communal gaze of two strangers, one with another, though cannot be characterized as intimate, is nonetheless, altogether

… Personal.

It could be just as well the mutual visual acuity which occurs between a man and woman of the same age, otherwise strangers, whose eyes momentarily meet in a crowded subway, or for that matter, an unrelated mother and child who providentially arrive at the same obscure place at the same time; who, in the communion of sight, and the absence of words,

… speak volumes.

For in the fullness of time, and in the course of an entire lifetime, any two such strangers who share such unspoken, but not uncommunicated momentary communion will be given such a privilege once,

… and never again.

 

By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 8