Only Us

Last Thursday, just days after I submitted my first post to this Blog, I could have sworn I was in the same car, on the same train, as Cope heading uptown. I wasn't sure it was him, until we got off the train (at the same stop no less); he was up ahead of me in the crowd. He had looked back just as he disappeared out of sight. I think he knew it was me, but thinking I had stood him up nearly a year before, he made no effort to wait for me.

When I got out of the subway, I looked around hoping to catch him. I couldn't see him anywhere. He had vanished. Then, walking across the street to the South, I saw him cross at the North. It was him. I am sure of it.

Yeah, right. What are the odds.

I would have been slow to believe, except it wasn't the only unlikely encounter for the week.

The next morning, I donned my red trenchcoat and an umbrella, and headed down the street to work, later than usual because of the unbelievable delay in trains. I was walking along, watching for puddles, wondering how much longer this "rainy season" would last, when I glanced up and caught half of a familiar face.

I ducked down to see if it was in fact him under that umbrella, and it was. He recognized me too, invoking the biggest smiles across both of our faces. Walking to each other I remark "What are the odds?" and he responded "Only us".

It was true. When I was commuting from Jersey, a precarious commute to be sure, I would often find myself on the same train, in the same car as him, sometimes early in the morning, sometimes later. There was no reasoning to it. The same would happen going downtown. Inevitably Jack* was there.

At one point we were both creeped out by the encounters, time would pass and we wouldn't see or hear from each other for ages, and then suddenly every week or so we'd bump into each other as if the cosmos had combined to put us there. It got to be so that I knew that if there was a strange delay to my commute that an encounter was coming up. Soon it became common place. Strangely those moments were moved to passing him on the street, or ending up behind him at a crosswalk. They became so frequent, that I stopped tapping him on the shoulder or getting his attention. And suddenly they stopped all together.

But it isn't just the New York moments that are so peculiar.

Years ago, when we were in High School, I had a presentation to do in my Honors English class. The assignment was to present a poem in a way that would highlight a poetic elements or something like that. I chose to sing, yes SING, Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken". We had a small class, so my embarassment, I calculated, would be contained. Except that on the particular day on which I was to present, another English class came in to join.

I did all that I could to block everyone out, which is probably why I don't remember him being there.

Class cleared out and I walked slowly down the hall, praying that the event would be forgotten. A girl can dream right?

As I approached my locker, standing on the corner was a guy I had only ever seen in passing. I couldn't imagine what it was he wanted or how he knew where my locker was. He smiled and said that he just wanted to say that I sounded great (oh goodness, he was there) and that he knew how much courage it took to do what I did. Then he was gone.

For years after graduation, whenever anything seemed particularly difficult, I would think back to that moment, and be suddenly renewed with strength to do whatever it was I needed to do, always surprised at the recollection of it.

Then one day I found a fantastic job in a fabulous city, and through a series of events came back in touch with Jack - years after we had graduated. He worked just 2 blocks west of me, what are the odds?

I think we both recognize that there is something special about the way we keep bumping into each other. And from time to time we think we're to make something more of it. But nothing we do ever seems to really stick, and so we walk away, figuring that we were wrong, that it was all just coincidence.

We don't know why we keep getting thrown together, only that we do. There is something magical about it, but we haven't figured out what.

So on this chance meeting, we smile and laugh, and know that it is "only us" who would be crossing paths once more. As common place as it has come, there is something special about each meeting and so we take the moment, despite the hundreds walking around us, to summarize our journeys since our last encounter. We make plans to catch up on the gaps, aware that the plans may or may not happen. With a kiss on the cheek and a laugh we part, more curious and less cautious about what this next stretch of road will bring.