It was a quick trip to the grocery store on a blustery Friday morning. As I entered, an older gentleman stopped just ahead of me, hearing a familiar voice on his left. A small woman was pushing her groceries through the exit. “Well, look who we have here,” she said.
He turned toward her with a smile. “Who do we have here!” he responded excitedly. Their serendipitous meeting warmed the cold outside air just for a moment.
I quickly walked past as a small smile crept across my face. It was nice to see familiarity and community. They seemed like old-timers, people who stayed in a city long enough to be shaped by it and to shape it in return.
I hurried to grab the items I needed and found the shortest line. As I waited, I overheard a conversation between a cashier and a younger employee buying his lunch for his break: two energy drinks and a small, ready-made deli meal. “You’re already on lunch?” the cashier asked.
“Yeah. I don’t know why I was scheduled this way. I just had a break an hour ago,” the younger employee replied. “The rest of the day is going to feel so long now.” The cashier turned to the person bagging groceries, who was standing there quietly waiting, and asked, “Could you put these things into a bag so he has something to throw his trash in? That way, he won’t have to get his car dirty.” Then looking back at her co-worker going on break, she said, “Have a good nap,” anticipating he’d get in some shut-eye in his car.
Advertisement
These moments — mundane and unpolished — speak volumes. For me, grocery shopping has become almost sterile. These fleeting snippets of humanity are rare, or perhaps I had simply stopped noticing them.
Advertisement
Some of the blame is on me. I often skip the cashier and opt for self-checkout, breezing in and out with minimal human interaction. Sometimes I don’t even enter the store — someone places groceries in my trunk, and a quick nod or thank-you suffices. But while I avoid the drudgery of navigating aisles or waiting in line, I also miss out on something deeper: the realities and rhythms of my neighbors’ lives.
That morning at the store, I realized I had curated my daily experience so much that I was at risk of erasing other people. Of losing my ability to recognize the weight of others’ stories and the struggles, triumphs, and quiet sacrifices that often go unnoticed.
It isn’t just about losing social skills. It’s about losing the understanding and fellowship sparked by unvarnished, everyday moments. The cashier’s gentle care for a young co-worker or the lingering warmth of a chance meeting by two old friends — these are the raw materials of empathy that can be so easy to ignore. These moments force us to pause and absorb the subtle cadences of other people’s lives — the sigh before a complaint, the uncertain smile in a mundane exchange, the tenderness in a single, unpolished remark.
Stepping into that store reminded me of the unparalleled importance of not just human connection, but connection to place — the subtle ways the real, physical closeness of proximity can encourage us to care for one another. In just minutes, I had glimpsed diverse experiences in the snippets of passing conversation and been forced to remember that lives are layered and complex, and those layers only reveal themselves through presence.
Advertisement
I often wonder how I can avoid losing touch with others’ experiences or unwittingly confining myself to a bubble where everyone shares my worldview. I could bury myself in the many books and studies on the subject.
Or, maybe, I just need more trips to the grocery store.
Wafa Unus is an associate professor of journalism at Fitchburg State University. Send comments to magazine@globe.com. TELL YOUR STORY. Email your 650-word unpublished essay on a relationship to connections@globe.com. Please note: We do not respond to submissions we won’t pursue.
