Chance Meetings: The World Comes Home

Hip workplaces, like Bloomberg and Yahoo, are all about promoting chance conversations to yield ideas. Swarthmore College in Philadelphia, my alma mater, designed dormitory laundry rooms to encourage students to strike up chats and create community. So said The New York Times.

Social science says friendly chance meetings are a barometer of well-being for a town or neighborhood. I used to wonder why.

But now I'm a believer in the magic and power of chance. Lately, I had several such encounters — crossings that made the world come home.

First, I saw Scott. We were reporters on the city desk of The Baltimore Sun newsroom. I last saw him at the end of 1999. And there he was, striding along the sidewalk on a brisk afternoon, near the Washington Post building.

In a split second, I connected the dashing stranger to a colleague from the last century. Through sunglasses, sure enough, it was the Pulitzer Prize winner who walked like a born New Yorker. A hello and a hug on the go. He took me in, past to present. I left Baltimore, I said, after you. We suggested a drink al fresco when the weather got warmer. Sounds good. You look fabulous and happy — went one of our emails.

The serendipity of this snapshot conversation lifted my spirits as I sailed along. Scott and I were cordial, not close friends, which may be part of the point. It's nice to be remembered by one on the outer circles of your life. You lose touch with them as life goes on — unless you happen upon them. Then you exchange a palpable hit of memory.

Next came Peter, philosopher king of the college tennis team, whom I ran into at a corner grocer. I'd have known the husky voice, the droll deadpan anywhere.

Jennifer, the unlikeliest suspect, stepped off a sofa in a press gallery in the U.S. Capitol, and we locked gazes. To meet after 15 years was passing strange, after our rivalries over Senate stories and some such. All gone in a laugh and a clasp. We worked on a Capitol Hill newspaper, covering it like a village full of characters and gossip before I left for Baltimore and she for New York.

She gave me a parting gift, "The Company She Keeps," by Mary McCarthy, a nod to shared ambitions. She has a book coming out, she said, and I was actually happy for her. For she is quite a writer.

Then there was Friday morning at the dry cleaners. I heard Ericka's voice before she turned her blue eyes in a beautifully cut face. A friend who had helped talk me out of a hard time years ago, with steady, smart advice. A friend whose first baby was born on a February day when I lived nearby. A friend in the same book club of six, three men and three women. She could be saucy, even about Jane Austen.

Here in the now, she was going to Nashville for the weekend. Music City. "Come visit," she said, smiling and telling me the street where they lived, one with wraparound porches where you watch the day go by.

I'll visit, with pleasure, thanks. Moments later, I walked out of the dry cleaners with the same rush. The world of my city colored and felt in tune with time. Maybe people in small towns stay for just that simple reason: belonging.

Bumping into people you know without a plan, not on Facebook or Twitter, well, try it sometime.

To find out more about Jamie Stiehm, and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.

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