Sleepytime Pondering

Sometimes I feel so anonymous in this big city. Riding the subte or a bus, I look around and see countless faces. So many people look so tired. They have worn lines on their faces, left from years of worry, remnants of the events they've survived. People stare vacantly at the wall, squished together uncomfortably. There's really nothing else to look at.

You could look at the person next to you, but that's sort of rude. You really can't help it, though. Looking around, suddenly you realize the crowd actually consists of unique individual people. Sometimes people smile and laugh together, couples cuddle and kiss, children cling to their mother's hands. There are small people and big people. People with gorgeous hair and thin straggly hair. Women wearing stilettos and men in crumpled button-downs. There are beautiful people with smooth Argentine skin and then there are people who are ugly people with crooked teeth and disheveled clothing. And you realize that you're just one of the masses. Throngs of people enter and exit, and if you don't bother to look close, well, they're just more people. They smell, they breathe, they move slowly along, trying to claim their tiny little places.

The other day I watched an itty bitty girl attempting to eat potato chips out of a bag. She could have tipped the bag and they would have fallen into her hand. Instead, reached into the bag to grab them, but it was too small for her hand so she spent inordinate amounts of time claiming each individual chip. She had a small round face and a flouncy red jumper. I watched, mesmerized by the awkward chip ritual, until her mother finally grabbed her roughly by the hand and dragged her off the subte, hand still stuck in the plastic. Today I watched a couple coddle together, the man whispering into the woman's ear as she giggled coyly and rubbed his leg. Yesterday I saw an obviously drunk group of boys; one of them with his head between his knees as his friends teased him mercilessly. I saw a woman wearing a neon paisley-print leotard on the way to the gym, her long manicured nails curled around the handle of a designer duffel bag. I saw an old woman distractingly gazing at me this morning, her eyes empty and her brown skin wrinkled and worn. They're just people. Lots of them.

Walking down the broken, littered streets here you doge the most stunning array of humanity. The lost tourists, the dusty obnoxious workers, the smartly suited business men, the chattering group of teenagers all jostling for a place on the narrow sidewalk. It exhausts me.

I have a student who is tired. He's been living in this big city for 15 years and he doesn't like it. His life isn't bad at all. In fact it's pretty good. He's successful, he lives in a beautiful house, he drives a nice car. Yet he's not happy; something is missing for him. I think that this city has just worn him down year after year and he can't escape. How many people live mediocre lives that simply aren't bad enough to risk changing? I often think that people walk around like zombies, repeating the same monotonous routine every day without noticing. It's just their lives. It's just how it is.

I wonder what people see when they look at me. If they even notice at all? They can't see my story. They probably don't know I've come thousands of miles to join them in their big city. I'm just one more person. Not incredible in any way, just one more person.

It strikes me that we all need to belong. We need to be wanted. Being just one of the hundreds of thousands of bodies wandering Buenos Aires isn't enough. The reason people find meaning and purpose is because someone somewhere cares about them and believes they're important. My student continues every day because he has a family: a wife and two daughters. They're his world; they make his life beautiful.

It's late at night and I can't sleep. I feel like just a little empty dot; one more little person living her little life. Thankfully, I do have people who love me and care about me. I just wish they weren't so very far away.