By Sam Hendrian
Whenever I look for moments of genuine human connection, I never end up finding
them. I can’t tell you how many coffee shops and restaurants I’ve wandered into alone,
practically flaunting my poetry notebook and hoping someone might take interest. I’ve
swallowed my pride and gone to the occasional organized social mixer, where the chances of
meeting someone worth talking to turn out to be even smaller. And I’ve mastered molding my
face into a wandering disposition, praying that game will recognize game and bring me
face-to-face with a fellow wanderer. But usually I fall asleep that night with no new
stranger-to-stranger conversations in my repertoire. “Usually” being the key word; every now
and then, my hopeless prayer finds reason to hope again.
Such was the case on the evening of August 3rd, when I wandered into a trendy Los
Angeles restaurant called All Time and sat at the bar with my notebook sprawled out next to me,
a paragon of youthful pretentiousness. After placing my order for Japanese sweet potatoes – one
of the only vegetarian items on the menu – my peripheral vision caught another lone person
seated next to me in the rather cramped bar space. She spoke softly to the waitress, so I could not
make out her tone of voice and get busy with premature projections. Either way I had no
intention of talking to her; most people in LA want to keep to themselves.
Yet on this occasion, my “Look at me, I’m writing POETRY!” gimmick actually paid off.
As I scribbled a half-baked line or two in a piece I’d started two days prior, I suddenly heard,
“Are you here by yourself?” Caught slightly off-guard, I turned to look at the woman sitting next
to me for the first time. She had dark hair tied behind her forehead so that if you didn’t catch it
cascading down her neck, you might think she had a very short haircut. Her dress was black and
loose to match the carefree nature of the August evening, and her disposition was both warm and
withdrawn, endlessly wavering between shy introversion and excessive curiosity. She looked to
be about 10 years older than me – maybe more, maybe less – but there was a youthfulness and
wisdom in her fragile smile that rendered age instantly irrelevant.
“Yeah,” I stuttered out, a bit awkward at first. As aforementioned, it was always my
dream for strangers to find me interesting and strike up a conversation, but on the rare occasion
they actually did, my vocal range reached the heights of a high school freshman asking a pretty
girl for directions to the geometry classroom. “In LA, it… it doesn’t seem common for people to
go to a restaurant by themselves. But I… I like it sometimes.”
“Me too. I like to just sit at the bar and read with a glass of wine. What are you writing?”
“Oh, uh… just a poem.”
“What’s it about?”
Her line of questioning wasn’t so rapid-fire, but the moment is still a blur to me; I was
both thrilled and terrified that a beautiful, mysterious woman was taking spontaneous interest in
my poetry. Anyhow, I attempted to explain the theme of the particular poem I was writing – it
was a somewhat rambling piece about misreading people’s body language, but I hoped I could
make it sound cohesive – and then she connected the subject of my poem to a recent experience
she’d had while striking up a deep chat with two friends, one of whom seemed a little
uncomfortable with the depth of the conversation.
“I realized from her shy, closed-off body language that she didn’t want to go that deep,”
she confessed. “I guess I have a tendency to overshare.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” I send with genuine encouragement. “Most people don’t want
to transcend small talk. But when you’re able to do that, it’s really beautiful.”
“I guess so.”
“What’s your name?”
“Shanelle.”
“I’m Sam. Nice to meet you, Shanelle.” And so the ice was officially broken. She told me
she actually lived full-time in Japan but was visiting some friends in LA and would be heading
back home on Monday. Her main passion was for making crafts – something I’d always been
profoundly bad at, especially when tortured with origami lessons in elementary school art class –
and she had an Instagram full of her artistic creations. We then proceeded to exchange our
Instagram handles, as I had a lot of my own art on mine.
Our food arrived, and we didn’t want to distract each other from eating. However, I was
in no rush to end this lovely conversation, so I told Shanelle about my famous poetry trick: give
me any topic, and I’ll write you a poem on it. Without missing a beat, she said:
“Okay. Write a poem about this conversation.”
Easy enough; I would have written a poem about it later anyway. I got right to work
while she ate some of her dinner, weaving aspects of our conversation into the stanzas and
combining them with my overall first impression of her as a person. Midway through, she
offered to buy me a dessert as a thank-you for the poem, which I of course accepted, deciding on
the gluten-free strawberry shortcake since she was gluten-intolerant and could therefore share it.
Soon I was finished with the six-stanza, free-verse piece – my daily writing ritual allowed me to
churn these out pretty quickly – and I presented it to her with an admittedly self-confident smile.
She read it while I began eating the strawberry shortcake, and I soon turned to see her
wiping tears from her eyes. “I was trying to hold back,” she said with a little laugh.
“It’s a great compliment,” I asserted.
“Definitely didn’t expect to end up crying with a stranger when I walked in here tonight.”
As she recouped from her watery eyes, we began another deep discussion regarding a
spiritual experience she had while taking magic mushrooms in the woods. I had previously
mentioned my tendency towards cynicism regarding the state of the world, which she countered
with what this spiritual experience taught her:
“I used to be embarrassed by all the freckles on my arms. But when I was in the woods, I
started to see each of them enlarged and full of intricate little patterns I had never noticed before.
If… if even my freckles are so carefully and lovingly designed, then surely the universe is too.
And wherever we’re heading, I have hope that Love is the final destination.”
This deeply moved me, even if I withheld tears. I never believed that everything happens
for a reason, and I still don’t, but now I was starting to find middle ground. Even all the arbitrary,
meaningless things that happen – including the evil ones – could not alter the beautiful design of
the universe and its ultimate destination of Love. So there was reason for optimism, reason to
believe that everything would turn out alright in the end.
Shanelle began to try some of the strawberry shortcake, and I started to ask her what she
thought of it before immediately stopping myself, knowing we had gone well past the point of
small talk. “Er, uh… what do you think the meaning of this strawberry shortcake is?” That gave
her a good laugh. She confessed that when she first arrived earlier, she almost asked to move
from her seat next to me because she thought it was too cramped, but then she had the faintest
idea that there had been some cosmic reason for her placement there, so she decided to stay and
inquire about what I was writing in my notebook. Boy, am I glad she did.
As the conversation gradually drew to a close – she had a friend’s party she needed to get
to – she made a radical suggestion: “You know, maybe we shouldn’t follow each other on
Instagram, and just let this experience stay in our minds. Then if the universe decides we should
meet again, we will.”
I smiled, having only recently accepted the beauty of letting moments stay moments.
“I’m down. Let’s do it right now.”
We then proceeded to take out our phones and unfollow each other on Instagram,
laughing about the anti-status quo nature of the act and consoling each other with the possibility
of a spontaneous reunion in the future. I had told her about my “free personalized poetry” stand
outside of Chevalier’s Bookstore every Sunday afternoon, so at least she knew where to find me.
“Should, we, uh… shake hands?”
“I can give you a hug,” I replied without any nervous hesitation. Standing up, we shared a
brief but soulful embrace, then said goodbye as I prepared to exit the restaurant first. On my way
out, I realized I had left my bag under the bar counter, so I rushed back and awkwardly said,
“Just kidding, forgot my bag” before bidding farewell again and rushing out the door, this time
for good.
There is something sacred and magical about leaving things at a nice goodbye, knowing
you shared a priceless moment of connection with another human person, but also accepting that
“hello” will likely never be exchanged between you again. Nevertheless, I silently prayed that it
was only a temporary nice goodbye; one does not meet a pure soul like Shanelle every day, and I
would feel beyond blessed to see her ephemeral freckles again.
Sam Hendrian is a lifelong storyteller striving to foster empathy and compassion through
art. Originally from the Chicago suburbs, he now resides in Los Angeles, where he primarily
works as an independent filmmaker and has just completed his first feature film Terrificman, a
deeply personal ode to the power of human kindness. You can find his poetry and film links on
Instagram at @samhendrian143.
Hot Pot Magazine 