remembering faces and moments

i find that the constant moving in my life has left me with too many faces. even when i am in an unfamiliar town, i seem to recognize people. (maybe its just an out of date presecription) i stop, i pause, i try to figure it out, all the while, i am sure, appearing like some crazy person who is wondering if she remembered to turn her stove off. so, today, walking to class, sure enough, i caught sight of someone whose face i recognized. but--it turns out i really did know him! he graduated from the Humanities program at Carleton a year or two a head of me. i have vague memories of parties thrown by upper year students, of being unsure of my place in it all, and he and his girlfriend reading poetry to each other in the midst of chaos. i remember that moment more than i remember him, or the girlfriend. i was amazed, jealous, curious...how had these two created such an intimate moment when fifty other drunken kids were around? and it was intimate. they were sitting on the ground, alone, laughing, reading, touching. i felt invasive. but they seemed nary to mind nor, even, to notice. they had captured something in that moment, and although i could not process what it was, i did have the capacity to recognize it. maybe. well, enough that it is five years later and i still remember that boy sitting with a girl. now, having sat with boys of my own, having moments of my own, i think i might value that one even more. for setting an example. for making me want something.

but back to the point. i saw this guy walking around campus this morning. now, to make myself appear less like a crazy stalker, i also met him in belgium when he visited my friend mike. and i decided to stop him, say hi, acknowledge that we knew each other. i don't think he remembered me. but that's okay. because it would have been somehow worse to let him walk by. i needed to treat him friendly-like simply because, well, i knew him. come on, we all walk by people, we all pretend not to see. well, for once, i decided to take a stand against standoff-ish-ism. and so i was friendly. he's thinking about going to school here, i told him what program i was attending, yadda yadda yadda. we went out separate ways. i seriously doubt we will ever cross paths again. but i know that if i do see him again, it will be a much more honest greeting than if i have walked on by today.

when i was young (and by young i mean up till, uh, now) i hated talking to strangers on the phone. family members, new friends, everyone. the phone=my enemy, my nemesis, it was the thing that made me abandon my confidence and caused my knees to shake. it was practically a phobia. seriously. i'd beg my mom to make phone calls for me. she never would, insisting that i had to learn to do it on my own. the reason for my paranoia: i hated the thought of people not remembering me. especially if i remembered them. it just seemed humiliating. but here i was, facing my fears like some kind of champion, and even though he didn't remember me, i survived. it was not a commentary on how valuable, or even how memorable, my existence on this planet is. because, hey, i know i stick out, at least for some of you. maybe i should make this post a challenge: smile at the people you recognize. tell them a joke, a story. but damn it, stop pretending that they aren't worth even a head nod. a head nod! it costs nothing.