“Do I know you?” he asks, smiling at me expectantly. (Of course, he asks me in french).
“No, I am a stranger here.”
“You are a what?” he asks, and I quickly realize 2 things: 1. my American accent while speaking French is getting in the way again and 2. he may be hard of hearing. So I get closer to him and clearly enunciating, explain that I ain’t from round here and I am American.
“Oh! he says, his eyes getting big. Well, I know everyone in this town!” He seems relieved that it’s not just a slip of his memory. Wearing a newsboy cap on his head and a mischevious grin in his twinkling eyes, this 80-something-year-old reminds me of my Grandpa Arthur who has been gone for many years now.
We carry on small chit chat on this tiny street in the small Belgian ville of Baelen. He asks me if I am here for Easter vacation. As that is a much simpler explanation I say yes. We soon wish each other a good day and I continue on to the small post office.
He soon arrives behind me and kisses 3 senior citizen women friends who are waiting in line. “See ? I told you I know everyone !”he says proudly. I can’t help but laugh, thinking again of my grandpa and how popular he was with the ladies. Another lady enters and she kisses everyone and then looks at me and says “I don’t know you, but bonjour Madame!” The old man announces “She is an American and is here on vacation.” One lady looks at me doubtfully and I assure her he is telling the truth. Apparently he is quite the jokester.
He asks me if people in the United States customarily greet each other with a kiss and I say that sadly, no.
Why is this line so slow? I wonder, and then I listen as the group of friends since childhood (I know because they tell me), begins chatting.
They talk about So and So who died last week, Did you hear the news ? This One fell and went to hospital, and That One went into a nursing home. This last subject provoked lots of discussion. None of them want to go to a nursing home. They all hope to die first. In the space of just a few minutes they talk of money (not enough of it), how things sure are different today, how time is flying by. I can feel the air thick with Fear and Uncertainty in this tiny little post office.
A young woman at the window turns around and asks everyone to be quiet as she cannot hear the words of the postal worker, who is on the other side of a glass like a bank teller. And like that, with the elders completely chastened, the room suddenly becomes very quiet.
I think about my grandparents. One of the ladies looks like my Grandma Audrey did, with button earrings, eyelids that seem to have disappeared and her cheeks freshly powdered. She catches me looking at her and I smile.
Not to be silenced, the old man standing next me continues “But worrying about Tomorrow is no way to live Today.” The others nod in agreement.
Now it is my turn at the window and I am here to pick up something for André so I present the paper left by the mail person along with André’s identification and signature and my identification. (They require ID for everything here! and 77 cents to mail something local? You must be kidding!)
I turn to leave and am tempted to kiss the old man on the cheek and tell him that we are no longer strangers but feeling the eyes of those in line I instead just say Bonne journee and Au Revoir.
On the walk home I wonder if it is still like this somewhere in small town USA and if somewhere people walk to post offices and still remember how to have actual conversations with each other.
The value of a real conversation cannot be measured in how many minutes it takes, or whether you get your point across. How can I possibly explain recognizing my English grandparents years after they have been gone in the eyes and gestures of strangers in Belgium ? With which words could I describe the magical feeling and privilege I feel of being allowed to witness to a group of life long friends sharing their deepest and most intimate fears all within the space of a few minutes? How could I possibly say in a way that makes any sense at all that the small interactions are often the best in the Human Condition, that by hearing the story of someone else makes them relevant and makes them matter? Would anyone believe me if I say that the more I hear the stories of Others the more I understand my own?
Sometimes the best part of talking to strangers is in the listening.
My Life as a Tumbleweed 