For months I’ve been sitting on my hands trying to figure out what to write as my foundational Substack post. One that sets the tone and gives a new readership some clues about who I am and why they might want to like and follow.
But breaking the ice is not easy. Not for me, anyhow. It’s a bridge that, even after 52 years on this planet, continues to be tricky. Fact is, I’m an expert at existing alone in a landscape of people—skilled at taking it all in as I casually sip my 6 oz. americano. I am also really doggone good at keeping the momentum once I’m properly acquainted with someone. But it’s the chasm between these two states I find most challenging. The moment when two unknowns come together for the first time.
One day a while back I was sitting solo at the co-op while lunching on some tofu sushi and kombucha. An older man approached and asked if he could join me. His eyes were kind and his knees seemed wobbly, so I offered him a seat. For the next hour or so we chatted about all sorts of things. His curiosity about my life became my curiosity about his. “I spend my afternoons inviting myself to folks’ tables,” he said. “It’s how I’m enjoying my retirement.”
I was completely wowed by this man and told him as much. I applauded his bravery, his blind confidence. His gall. I went on about how people must be surprised by his random request. Caught off guard. How they must look at him sideways. Maybe even shoo him away, refuse to be bothered. Perhaps even talk their trash as he limps over to the next unsuspecting table.
“I think I’d be too afraid to do what you’re doing,” I said while making the quiet assumption that his boldness must be one of the gifts of advanced age.
The man shook his head. Slowly raised his knuckled hand to quell my rant. Then told me if there’s one thing he’s learned as he’s gotten older it’s that, “This connection between you and me is all that matters.” His words choked me up.
He said that in order to make a connection happen, someone has to speak up first. And even if a dozen or more people turn him away, one surely won’t. And that one connection, he said, makes it all worthwhile.
These days his personal mission is to be what he spent his life trying not to be—vulnerable. “I want to stir up what’s comfortable and make room for something unexpectedly beautiful.” And as he said this, he moved his index finger back and forth between us.
You and me. Unexpectedly beautiful.
I’ve been kidding myself thinking that my Substack ice breaker needs to be anything in particular. Tricked into believing that interesting details of my life will make you, as a reader, suddenly willing to like and follow me, a veritable stranger on this medium. I’ve been approaching this opportunity all wrong. Making it all one sided. All about this guy. Shoot, nobody wants that. Not even me.
I am you, and you are me. Let’s buy into that and willingly trade our habitual comforts for moments of uncertainty. Of possibility. Let’s sit at a table together. Let’s activate the curiosities about ourselves and each other and breathe into a mutual uplift. Inhale and exhale. Repeat.
I don’t want to wait for some future date when I can use my age as an excuse for my daring. I choose to do it now. I hope you’ll join me.