The Me Meeting The Me
Sheri and I had traveled a bit in Europe. In 1998, we were part of a church exchange trip to Romania. Afterwards, we wandered on our own for a while – Venice, Rome, Munich, Berlin, and eventually Warsaw.
Up to that point, I had managed reasonably well with my small collection of linguistic survival tools. English, of course. A little German. A tiny splash of Latin roots. Enough to stumble through menus and train stations with the confidence of a Midwestern tourist pretending not to panic.
Then we arrived in Poland.
Suddenly, all my verbal tools fell apart.
Nothing connected. The signs looked like someone had dropped a box of consonants down a stairwell. About the only thing I recognized was “WC” over the restroom doors – European shorthand for Water Closet, one of the last surviving landmarks of civilization.
We exchanged a few dollars for Polish currency, found the restroom, returned to the station, and realized we were lost.
According to our itinerary, we needed to find the overland bus to Vilnius, Lithuania, avoiding Belarus along the way. This sounded adventurous when reading the guidebook safely at home. Standing in Warsaw with luggage piled around us and absolutely no idea where to go, it felt considerably less romantic.
Traveling “by the seat of your pants” always sounds glamorous until the moment your pants appear entirely unqualified for the situation.
We were trying to look calm while privately calculating how difficult it might be to spend eternity inside a Polish train station.
Then a woman approached us.
Her name was Maria, and she had come to meet someone arriving by train. In hesitant English, she asked, “Can I be of service?”
We tried to explain our situation. Her English was limited. Our Polish was nonexistent. So together we performed that ancient human dance of gestures, fragments, facial expressions, nouns without verbs, and hopeful pointing.
At last, she nodded thoughtfully and said, “Bus stop over there. I check.”
Then she disappeared.
Sheri and I stood there guarding our luggage and trying to appear internationally competent.
A few minutes later, Maria returned.
“Bus Number Six,” she said, holding up a handful of fingers and one more. “Takes you to bus station.” Then she handed us four tickets.
“Four – in case luggage needs tickets too.”
I pulled out my small wad of Polish currency, but she waved it away. “I have plenty,” she said.
That small act of kindness hit with surprising force. Not because of the money. But because, for a few moments in the middle of confusion and fear, another human being saw us completely.
Not as Americans, or tourists, or strangers, or as a problem. She saw frightened travelers trying to find their way through this country of giants.
And we saw her too.
As we boarded the bus, relieved and grateful, she smiled and said, “You, me… we communicate.”
I think we did something a little deeper than that.
For a brief moment, three people, each with a frightened Me – with all their languages and histories and uncertainties – grew quiet enough for one I Am to recognize two others.
Most of the time, we encounter one another through The Me. Through personality, memory, role, fear, tribe, language, history, attraction, irritation, and all the other luggage we drag through life.
And that is not necessarily bad. The Me helps us survive the country of giants.
But every now and then, something quieter slips through.
A stranger helps us in Warsaw.
A child falls asleep on our shoulder.
Someone listens instead of merely waiting to speak.
Two old friends sit in silence without needing to perform intelligence for one another.
A hand reaches across a hospital bed.
And for a brief moment, the barriers grow thin.
We stop relating merely as roles, opinions, accomplishments, wounds, or carefully defended identities.
Something deeper recognizes itself.
Perhaps love begins whenever another human being stops being merely a character in our story and becomes a living center of experience as real and mysterious as ourselves.
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