A strange intimacy flows from handwritten messages, especially those intended for somebody else.
Recently I found a birthday card in the restroom of a college football stadium. In another town. My family was visiting for only an hour or two, to see my niece play a soccer game. It was a weeknight, and the stadium was nearly empty. But someone had been in the bathroom before me and lost her card. Probably a grand-daughter. Someone who was distracted, someone thinking about goals.
The check inside had a phone number. I recognized the eastern North Carolina area code. The first three digits were the same as my late grandmother’s number, which I still sometimes dial just because.
“Hello, my name is Whitney…I’m an architect in Virginia, and I found your card and check…would you like me to mail them to you?”
“Well, aren’t you the sweetest thing?” said the elderly man on the other end of the line. His voice’s southern lilt landed me in a rocking chair on his front porch.
“My people are from the Apex area. Ever heard of Green Level?” I asked. (Did I just say “my people?”)
“Well, the next time you’re in the area, I want you to come and see us,” he said. And he meant it. We were now each other’s people.
“I will!” I said. And I meant it, too.
A young man, recently divorced, spoke of his ex-wife, saying: “She had no sense of TRIBE”. It was more an expression of dismay and sadness than criticism – his countenance reflecting such empty loneliness. Those words have resonated so many times with me since: “. . . no sense of TRIBE.”
Yes ! There it was – a core element in CONNECTEDNESS with other travelers on our Spaceship Earth. How reassuring and validating it is when we discover other “travelers” who turn out to be OUR people.