Maybe you adjust your seat, flip your radio station, play with your hair, eat a bag of cheetohs (ya, I saw you dude). Whatever it is, we all have something to get us through. We all have something we recognize to tell us how much further we have to go... landmarks...a piece of street art that we always see... an overpass, a roadside Denny's, a train tunnel... maybe it's the pest control sign off the 101.. whatever it is, we see it, we identify with it, it makes us comfortable somehow.. . We drive on autopilot, occasionally making eye contact, a head nod, mostly thinking no one sees us, no one probably does.. we have our eyes on the prize... we must get there, wherever we are going... thing is, we are the same, someone else passed that same landmark and recognized it just as I did.. they judged their distance.. someone notices that street art everyday on their routine drive... we are connected...
It wasn't until today... sitting in the bumper to bumper that I realized... we are an ocean, a sea of strangers.. but we're all the same... not matter what... I started looking at everyone that passed me... everyone as far as I could see.. in their cars, I felt like I was invading their privacy... but then I thought.. "you are a stranger to me, but I am seeing your face right now... so you are no longer strange... this is the first time I've seen you, and when you change lanes or drive a head of me, I may never see you again..".... "are you looking at the same things I am?"
I started to try hard to make sure I saw, really saw, everyone's passing faces.... I wondered who it was I was looking at... a mother, a daughter, father, son... clown, actor, scientist, lawyer... did he look at the pest control sign too?
We are all connected I guess is the point... let's not forget... when we see someone on the street, in the store... we see, smell, hear the same things.... strangers aren't so strange anymore....
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