Last Thoughts Before Sleep

I find I like to be alone in a crowd.  To be in a place where there are many people and no one demands anything of me.  I walk the malls sometimes, or sit at one of the many benches, watching and feeling the crowd, not interacting.  I almost wish I could go up to Seattle for a few days, to walk in the markets and pick up the gleanings of other people’s lives.  It’s amazing what you can hear if you just listen.  There are so many people who want nothing more than to have someone listen, to have someone carry a part of them with them.  That single image, maybe a part of a story, or a touch or a look… that’s the way to reach immortality, to be remembered by someone.
 
I try to remember.  I can’t remember the face of the man on the bus who was a Translator but I remember his passion, his fire for his job.  I remember him speaking Norwegian and the beauty in the language.  
 
I can remember dark hair and eyes.  He had come from New York, I can’t remember why, but he was leaving the casino and was taking the same bus that I was.  He was a Taoist, and talked to me of energy, of how two plumb lines were never the same, that they’re all a little different, and to remember that my plumb line isn’t the same as anyone elses, and to rejoice in that difference.
 
Then there was mermaid guy.  He has a place in my memory for a long time… It was a morning ride on the bus, and he was talking to the guy next to him about all sorts of things, but the one bit that I remember more than anything was when he said, "I talk to Mermaids.  They usually say ‘blub blub blub’ to everyone else, but they speak to me clearly."  
 
I remember the guy who sat across the aisle from me on the train, who was telling me about how the Illuminati hid secret symbols in the decks of Bicycle playing cards.  I didn’t understand it, but he just wanted someone to listen to his ideas.   
 
I remember the dancer who was downtown in the park everytime there was a band there.  He would dance, sometimes with huge fans made of blue feathers, sometimes with gold cloth.  I don’t know his name or his story, but I remember him.  
 
I think that’s part of the reason why I love OD so much.  Every entry is a glimpse in someone else’s life.  I get to see bits and pieces of people’s selves.  And I rejoice in that.  I remember their words and I take a tiny piece of that away with me.  Those words, for good or ill, has changed me.