A Flutter in the Wild

Shared stories inch us toward one another.

Bumping into a book in the wild in 2022 for which I was a contributor

When an author finds his or her work in a bookstore, library or wherever, a little flutter occurs in the stomach. That’s how I feel anyway when it happens to me. Psychology might refer to that feeling as being validated or seen. I don’t know what to do with all that. I think I’ll stick with flutter.

People sometimes refer to the real world as the wild. As in, “I saw my book out in the wild!” I really like that phrase. It resonates with me.

Books contain stories just waiting to be experienced. But authors aren’t the only ones with stories. Everyone has them. It’s one of the reasons I love cafes and coffee shops so much. You can hear snippets of people sharing their stories with one another. I wrote a book of thirty essays while sitting in coffee shops that highlight these types of stories.

In Common Grounds: Contemplations, Confessions, and (Unexpected) Connections from the Coffee Shop, I wrote this:

I pick up on a conversation that two elderly men and two elderly women are having at a nearby table about how a relative helped one of the men to feel alone no longer.

“My dad died on a Saturday,” the man says to the group. “The next day a lot of people came over to the house and brought food. I wasn’t feeling comfortable with all that. I went upstairs where the bedrooms were and sat on the steps. It was dark. Somebody must have told Anthony I was sitting up there alone. He came up and put his hand on my knee. It sort of chokes me up.”

“How old was he?” the other man says.

“About forty, and I was ten.”

“It’s the little things like that that make all the difference, isn’t it?” the other man says.

Conversations like this are one of the beautiful things about coffee shops. We share our stories, offer comforting words, and we inch closer to one another.

Maybe that’s what life in the wild really looks like. People telling their stories in ordinary places. A man remembering a hand on his knee in a dark stairwell just when he needed it. Friends listening across a small table, knowing that a man in their tribe was hurting and vulnerable. Strangers sharing space in a coffee shop, away from the routines and distractions of everyday life.

None of it feels extraordinary in the moment, but these small exchanges help us inch toward one another, reminding us that we aren’t alone.