Public moments of intimacy

I’ve been noticing, lately, how many intensely personal moments there are walking around the streets every day.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about spying on people or stalking anyone; I’m not (despite anyone’s allegations!) the type of person who strolls around stealing people’s saris off beaches (see this blog post for the likely explanation of the whole sari-beach incident.

It’s just that I’ve been walking around with my eyes open a little wider, riding my scooter a little slower and noticing things more. Much of the time I think we’re so wrapped up in our thoughts and plans for the day that we forget our space collides with other people. It’s these collisions that fascinate me.

What exactly am I talking about?

Watching people’s faces as they drive to work. Seeing their expressions as someone cuts in front of them, or as they hear something funny on the radio or sing along to a song they love. Those moments of humanity that slip past our Game Faces (you know, the mask you put on so that nobody knows how you really feel about something).

I’ve been noticing how people wait to cross the road — whether they look up at the sky and daydream, stare impatiently at the flashing red man, or switch off and retreat inside their heads. Or other little moments — someone taking off his or her jacket and visibly feeling lighter, somebody walking down the street sipping a coffee and loving it, a homeless man pushing a trolley of cans and trying to catch anyone’s eye (anyone at all), or a builder pausing to catch his breath and noticing the clouds rolling in over the mountain.

These are the moments of humanity I’m talking about, the moments where it is possible to see that although we all feel as if we’re doing this whole life thing on our own, save for our friends and family, in some ways and in some small fleeting instances, we are not.

I challenge you to notice these moments!

And write them down so we can all share them.

That’s what I’ve tried to do in my novel, and it’s what I think we should all be trying to do every day.

Yip, I do.