Look to the children

I often find myself walking down a street in some far-off city that I never thought I’d see.  And as I watch the faces pass me by I sometimes start to think about how I’ll never really understand their stories.  We grew up worlds apart—or at least thousands of miles—with different cultures, values, rules.  We’ve been taught different sides of history, learned different prejudices and embraced different “universal” truths.  And every one of those things has molded and defined us, creating nuances that I’ll never even crack the surface of, even though I try to learn, because I can’t even ask them their names.

When all of that feels like an insurmountable wall erected between us I look to the children.  Because no matter where I’ve gone in the world, the children are the same.  They run down the street for no reason.  They hold hands unselfconsciously with boys or girls.  They get excited for the first day of snow in the winter.  They chase pigeons in the park.  They do cartwheels just because they can.  Just like I did.  And as I recognize myself in them I start to understand that we may be sculpted in different ways through our lives but we all start with the same base.

So it doesn’t really matter that we can’t talk to each other or that none of the faces passing look like mine. Because whatever the nuances in our stories, I know that we share a common core based in the very nature of humanity.  And I think that you can see that best in a child— in Azerbaijan, in California, in Poland or in Ukraine— as he chases a bird and giggles when it flies away.