parmesan cheese

“sometimes i wonder if we're not all pieces of the same puzzle." benjamin wondered aloud. i knew we were, but i didn't say anything. i had ridden with benjamin and clara from astoria to hood river, where we would part ways. it's difficult to explain how we ended up sitting at a picnic table deep in thoughts that were too heavy for conversation, but i'll just say that sometimes you meet someone and it feels like you've known them your whole life. so there we just sat. together. connected. didn't they feel it? of course we were from the same puzzle. i had just met these people hours ago on a totally different path of life and we so obviously had such human-ness in common. "the humanity puzzle" i thought as a man sauntered by and gave us a half-wave of the hand/head. my thoughts sailed off with him and i wondered what his story was. where was he going? where was he coming from? how does he fit into the puzzle? i've met a lot of people in my life. every last one of them contains some bit of humanity inside: radiating out from the deepest part of their soul. it's so obvious to me. i've seen it. "the humanity puzzle."

my name is "joe." (or at least that's what i told them. partly because i don't really remember having a real name that was any different, and partly because i like the way it sounds.) "joe schmoe..." i informed them. "i think it's german." we laughed. some people call me a drifter, i think i'm a listener. see, there's this "call"... this... "power" in all of us, moving us, urging us through life. it's the notion we get that there's more. it's the urge we get to quit our meaningless, half-hearted pursuits, throw caution to the wind and just pursue life itself with everything in us. i just figure people don't hear it. either that or they don't listen. instead they just go through the motions. living the life that they think they're "supposed" to live.

suddenly clara broke the silence. she stood up to pace, the thoughts in her head too uncomfortable to sit with any longer. "i hear it" she stammered, "i just can't always listen to it." nobody said anything. "i mean, sometimes i do, but sometimes i have to be responsible...right?" she looked at benjamin for assurance. he just sat there, staring back. "i guess that's what makes me 'joe'." i thought to myself. "i can't do anything but listen. like a pebble caught in the gap of the rubber grip on your shoe. just along for the ride."

i've done some odd things in my time, but words barely disclose half of what happened next: suddenly i stood up, walked over to clara, and gave her a hug. a real hug. i couldn't explain it. i didn't speak, clara didn't speak, benjamin didn't speak. we just were. then benjamin stood up, walked over, and gave me a hug. a real hug.

there it was. radiating out from our souls. humanity. humanity in my person reaching out to the humanity in another.

an exchange took place there that is hard for me to describe. i gave them a piece of me. the real me. and they gave me a piece of them. the real them.

and our pieces fit together. like pieces from the same puzzle.