Excuse me, can you watch my stuff?
I’m away for the long weekend at a place that has trees that aren’t in rows, frequent visits by bears, and sunsets that aren’t blocked by sailboats or skyscrapers. Here, nature is something that is so ubiquitous no one notices it much except when it affects their house.
(It’s gorgeous here and the house I’m in is a wonderland for adults with an entire former barn converted to a pleasure room with a monstrous well-stocked bar, bean bag chairs, 1980s video games, board games, a piano, darts, a guitar, antique chess and backgammon, a massive fireplace, and probably a whole lot of other things I didn’t notice)
Let’s discuss the fact that people leave their stuff with strangers.
(Have you forgotten the subject of this newsletter? Trusting strangers!)
The guy on the empty train platform above, for example, had been standing very far away from me. In order to leave his stuff that close to me, he had to look me over and think “this person seems honest enough not to steal my stuff.”
But then, instead of leaving his things on the lonely part of the platform where he was standing, he decided (again, for no reason) that I might be trustworthy, and instead of just leaving the things on the empty part of the platform where he’d been standing, he actually brought his things much closer and asked me if I could watch the stuff for him.
I agreed to do it.
This is so fascinating, isn’t it? I do this too. I will choose a random stranger to request they watch my stuff. There is no way this makes the stuff more safe than if I’d just left it, and yet I feel absolutely more secure after making a verbal contract between strangers where neither of us knows whether the other is honorable enough to keep the contract.
Basically, in addition to not stealing my stuff, I’m trusting a stranger to also not break his word.
When you give someone more responsibility, does it make them more trustworthy?
On the train platform, I didn’t touch his stuff and would not have allowed another stranger (just as unknown as the first one) to take the stuff. Afterward we had a brief conversation in which I was told a lot of details about his life.
Why does it feel safe to ask that a stranger watch your stuff?
Perhaps because our best friends were all once strangers to us.
SPARKS OF INSPIRATION
I think an interview or two will appear in public this week - one is an online interview and one a podcast.
I got interviewed in print as a New York State Council on the Arts grant winner—it will go out in the Girls Write Now Newsletter this week.
The podcast is by the IG influencer Jo Piazza. I love this woman because she made her name as an influencer by speaking out against influencing. I had the great fortune to meet her in person at the luxury writing conference I attended in Croatia and she invited me to her popular podcast Under the Influence - my interview should drop this week! I’m also taping an interview with Ben Tanzer this week - I can’t wait! It was such a joy to be interviewed by him in person in Chicago last month!
Saw John Proctor is the Villain on Broadway. Highly recommended for a show that you want to talk about - discussing the ideas seems to be the intention of this play. I loved it. Also I finished Richard Powers’ new book Playground. Again, a thought-provoking book. Some books should come with fellow readers.
RANDOM FINAL THOUGHT
The final instruction is my favorite. A written demand that we read the sign is so convoluted. If you don’t read the sign, are you breaking the rules—? Or just ignorant of the rules?
There was an added irony: the bright yellow cash box on the counter near this sign was clearly labeled the change box. The purchase box outside was black. So now what?
Trust! What a great topic!