Stories with Strangers

Last night I had the joy of being able to attend an open mic night in a city that I have wanted to visit since my last year of undergrad. It was an incredible night, an amazing venue, and I could FEEL the music loud and clear there.

Sometimes experiencing new things and meeting new people can get overwhelming for me, to the point that instead of enjoying situations I end up getting drained by them. But sometimes, like last night, I get to just be there and enjoy the things around me.

I had gone to this open mic because my person was getting featured at it and I was able to be there and support her while also just getting to hear other artists from the area that I hadn't been able to before. Sitting in this big old building, it was like you could hear with each note played on a guitar all the voices of the people who had inhabited this same space in all it's years. In my best guest-imation, I would say the building was easily over a hundred years old, and the original wood floors reflected that.

The deep grooves and ruts all smoothed together with wear of the years looked like it was just begging to tell stories of what it had seen. Time wears us down, but this place had aged so incredibly.

The tall tall ceilings and large windows that ran the length of two of the walls meeting in a corner made the space feel like it was expanding into the streets just outside.

It felt like I had been there a thousand times.

But as much as the old lives of this place were felt while we were there, hearing the life pouring through the performers at this open mic was clearly the lifeblood still pumping through the tall pillars holding this building up. The opening band, that I didn't catch the name of because I showed up a little late, was in full swing when we first grabbed a table. I was instantly just in awe of the whole environment. The crowd just felt overwhelmingly loving and supportive of this life music and it was incredible to walk into. As we moved through the next two performers, I fell in love.

Yes, you read that correctly. I fell in love with each of the performers and in love with every note that was played. My significant laughed a little because I guess I looked like a kid in the Happiest Place on Earth, but I was truly enjoying myself so much.

Getting to experience all these different people and hear stories played out in their songs just makes the experience so special. Intimate, even. Like I can feel what they are feeling through the strains in their voice and the way they are playing their instruments.

Because I came with one of the performers (shout out to you haha) I hung around afterwards to help pick up equipment and just be there with the other musicians. One of the guys who performed, Joe, was cracking me up. First impressions of him just don't do him justice. Before he performed, I had never heard him or spoken to him before, but his singing voice was deep and strong and had this string of gravel (I can't seem to find the right word to describe it here) in it that I completely enjoyed. When we were all standing around afterwards though, I actually met him and found out that he was actually a really soft spoken, not at all like his boisterous songwriting voice.

He was cracking jokes and making puns with one of the other performers and myself and it was so incredible to just be in that space with these clearly passionate, kind people.

My girlfriend found out that night that I was kind of interested in finding a poetry open mic in the area to check out and Joe was more than happy to start listing off people who either used to run open mics or who participated in them. He seemed so genuinely excited that we were looking into other ways to connect to this creative community in the Indy area.

Joe also works for the venue we were playing at, and because of how interesting the place felt we wanted to ask what he knew about it's history. It was across the street from an old train station, so we were kind of thinking it would have something to do with a gathering place or store front with it being so close to a central point for travelers.

Joe, apparently not one to skip a beat, said "This place used to be an old storehouse for an underwear factory."

No joke. That was his answer. And none of us believed him. But the way he was so straight forward about the way he told us and the way he supposedly came by that information that we wanted to believe this absurd idea that this gorgeous building was part of an underwear factory.

Those small moments of connection with people move things in me. Shared spaces and conversations with people who just want to share in this experience in life with me propel me forward. Feeling like there are larger communities to connect with outside of my tribe, even if these new communities are not ones that I will ever get to encounter again, make me feel a little hope. A little alive. A lot thankful to get the chance to know people. A lot blessed to be sharing moments of realness with someone else-even if that just means a two minute conversation about the beginnings of a maybe-one-time-underwear-factory-turned-brewery.

Feeling thankful for this work in progress. Thankful for conversations with strangers. Thankful for moments of seeing God in other people.

Keep being you. Keep trying to connect to others. Pay attention to the small connections you make with others-your one piece of kindness may be all that they see that day.