Letter two: Strangers

Hey, have you seen the ducklings?

Everyone here talks to you. The woman at the grocery store, the man at the post office, someone coming the other way on the sidewalk. A few words, a nod, a smile. In Tallinn this simply does not occur. You buy the milk, you nod if you must, and you leave. I noticed the difference on our first day, and I still notice it, mostly because I keep answering.

A few evenings ago we walked in Mueller Park. The heat had backed off a little, and the light was that late-day kind that makes even the pond look better than it is. We were taking pictures of birds when two young women passed us, stopped, and asked if we had seen the ducklings.

After that it was the usual. Where are you from. Estonia. What brings you here. I gave the short version, the one that fits between two strangers and a pond.

Then one of them said they were Christians, and asked if they could pray for us.

I said yes as if she had asked the time. I asked what we were supposed to do, and she said, just close your eyes, we will take care of the rest. So we did, on a public path, while people walked past with dogs and strollers as if nothing unusual was happening, which to them it wasn’t. A person I had known for a few minutes asked that our year go well and that school be kind to our son. The whole thing lasted about five minutes. We exchanged contacts afterwards. I will probably never see them again.

I have been thinking about that interaction quite a bit, which is a ridiculous amount of thought to give some minutes by a pond. But that is how my brain works. It latches onto something, sometimes useful, often not, and starts turning it over. I kept asking myself what was actually interesting here, besides the fact that it was new. At some point I got to it. There was no transaction.

A lot of my talking has a request hiding in it, even when it is polite. The cashier scans and I pay. The email wants a meeting. The call wants a name. I start the conversation because I need something, and they answer because that is the job. Even friends are not free of this. Nobody really calls just to call anymore. If you want to meet, you compare calendars and try to work out which year might still have a free Tuesday in it.

I kept looking for the other half of the trade anyway, the part where I was supposed to give them something back, or sign up for something, or agree to a next step. Five minutes of a stranger’s attention, with nothing on the invoice. I am not used to being spoken to that way, and I liked it more than I expected to.

Back in Estonia the rule is mostly kind: you do not step into a stranger’s life unless you have been invited. People leave you intact, and they wait until they have a reason. You can go a long time being treated with perfect courtesy and still feel like furniture. Seen, in a way, and also not quite there, like wallpaper, with a pulse.

Maybe that is part of what feels different here. People seem to allow themselves to approach you before there is much of a reason. Usually it is just a hello, or a question about something completely unimportant, and then the conversation is over. But there is less waiting for permission, or perhaps a different idea of what counts as permission. Someone talks to you, and you can decide whether to talk back.

Here the day keeps tapping you. Most of the taps are pleasant nothings. A cashier who is genuinely, alarmingly pleased to see you buy milk. A man on the sidewalk who says good morning as if you were already in the middle of a conversation. Once in a while the tap is stranger than that, and you find yourself in a short religious service next to a pond.

None of this is community. Nobody is taking you in. The cashier will not remember the milk, and the two women will not become our friends because we now have each other’s numbers. It is closer to weather. Brief contact, then the person is gone, and the day is slightly different.

At some point I went online looking for a name for that smaller thing and found that psychologists have already written a great deal about it. Of course they have. Weak ties. Minimal social interactions. Social snacking, which is almost insultingly accurate, and therefore my favourite. The studies are mostly about hellos, thank-yous, a short conversation with a barista or someone on a train. People report better mood and a stronger sense of belonging on the days they have more of these contacts, even after you account for time with the people they actually love. The same people usually expect the exchange to feel awkward, and then come away saying it was fine, or even pleasant. The prediction is almost never the thing that happens.

That research does not explain the prayer. A stranger asking God to look after your son’s school year is not a weak tie in the ordinary sense. It does explain the climate the prayer arrived in. The city keeps offering small openings. You do not have to go hunting for them, but you do have to be available enough to tap back.

By Estonian standards I am on the sociable end, which means I do not cross the street to avoid a neighbour. Here that is not an achievement. I am working on it.

I said yes as if it were nothing. So far that seems to be how the place works.

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