Strings

As I sit writing, I am surrounded by strings - strings of conversation, strings of emotions, the strings that make up our lives.  So many strings floating lightly and delicately through the air like discarded spider’s webs.

I wonder if I’m the only one here who notices it.  Everyone here is so immersed in the reasons they came - food, conversation, work.  Everyone living in their own sphere, aware of only their own strings.

The men sitting in the table next to me have come to discuss some sort of business plan.  They are different in race, marital status, and age, yet business has united them in conversation and goal.  

The girl sitting diagonally across from me reminds me of a character in a movie who had to cut off her hair so that pirates would think her a boy and ignore her.  Yet – this girl is lacking in spunk and depth.  The way she's laughing too hard at the boys across from her tells me that she is immersed in only one of a few different strings.  Attaining, perhaps, or pleasing, or keeping.

There’s a young man in the corner who is charging his phone and listening to music I suppose through those earphones.  His hunched disposition tells me that he is not only unaware of the other strings in this room – he does not want to be aware of them.

And then my eyes graze a girl about my age, who is sitting by herself, sipping a hot drink.  I remember seeing her come in and observing her long, slender, carmel-colored legs, and her dark, shining, braided hair.  I remember thinking she was one of those people that make me wonder if  all humans truly are one species.  Yet, when my eyes scan her face, I realize she is looking straight back at me.  She stares back at me unashamedly until I finally look away.  And I wonder.

Is she another, like me, who is interested in seeing the strings? Does she wonder about the mother sitting in the corner without a wedding, or the couple who won’t meet each other’s eyes, like I do?  Does she look not just to find, but to see and to understand?

Perhaps.  But it’s a question I’ll never have the answer to.  Because while I am brave enough to look for the strings and wonder about them, I’m not brave or free enough to track them down and find their meanings. 

And so I’ll sit here amongst the strings, seeing without understanding, and wondering a bit which is the better fate: to never see the strings that surround you, or to see them without understanding?