"Stranger"

A relative term...

**This is a bit of a different “article” — it was a voice note I made a transcription of and cleaned up a bit for readability. So the voice carries a chuckle, if you care to listen. It’s raw, unscripted…

So I’m sitting in the mobile blood donation drive vehicle, reading an article from Elizabeth Oldfield, who is someone I respect tremendously. And she writes a lot about strangers. She comes at it, probably, from many perspectives, because she’s such a well-educated, interesting, and well-conversed person.

But this particular article had a common frame for her, which is through the Bible. The article is titled “Remember you were strangers.”

And something just struck me as so funny in that word ‘stranger.’ Not in her article, not in the title, but in the word ‘stranger.’ Because as an adjective, it’s actually a relative term.

To acknowledge that someone else is a stranger, first I must recognizes that I am strange. And that in this moment moment of relating, you are a relative, as in “we are related” and you are a relative stranger. You are stranger than I — more strange (merely from my limited perception, of course.)

And I, as a stranger to you, am stranger than you are, and this recognizes you are strange! And I just thought, what a fun little play on words, because we are all strange. (What a fun starting point!)

This idea of normal, it’s not… I mean, what is normal?

I think almost anyone could say, “But what actually is normal?” Is there really such thing as normal? I mean, we play like there is, or sometimes we very seriously “know” there is normal. And [voice drops and gets very serious] sometimes someone or somebody in their action has strayed outside of normal or acts outside of normal. (And that’s perceived in a variety of ways.)

But I think on some level, we all know that we have our idiosyncrasies. And as soon as you get to know someone, you get to know their idiosyncrasies. And you can no longer call them a stranger. You find they are just as strange as you are.

And you are strange, like a beautifully strange person, thank goodness! It’s just a different way of saying you’re unique or you’re special, or a much less condescending thing than to say you’re a snowflake, right?

I just love this.

Relative stranger.

You’re a relative. (You’re my relative.). You were a stranger, relative.

So there, that’s it. That’s my musing for now.

And, well, let’s not be too strange to each other.