Day 13: Never Have I Ever... Just Listened

I get bored easily, so I’ve become a master multi-tasker.

I don’t just watch TV. I watch TV while paying bills, organizing a drawer, knitting, or playing cards. At the very least, I’ll have a magazine on my lap to read during the commercials. 

My train ride to work is 35 minutes long, so my work bag is always stocked with a magazine, novel, and book of games so when I get bored with one, I have two others at my disposal.

The commute from work today was no different except I missed the express train so I was stuck with the 55-minute ride. But I sat in my usual seat on the second level among the long row of seats facing the center of the train. From this seat, you usually don’t sit directly next to someone, but you face a row of people on the opposite side of the train.

After settling down in my seat, I reached down to pull out the riveting novel Half Broke Horses by one of my favorite authors, Jeannette Walls, which was punctuated with a loud burst of laughter. It was then that I looked up to see the most random group of five teenage girls sitting directly across from me talking about what they learned at the Body Worlds Exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry. I start to turn my head toward my book, but find that my eyes don’t leave the group of girls chattering away.

Had they not been sitting together yakking away, I would have thought they were just five strangers who happened to be sitting next to each other. 



Jessica, Sarah, and "Chicago"

Sarah is the most boisterous of the group of recent high school graduates. Had she not been wearing bright pink sweatpants with her black T-shirt, I would have continued thinking she was a teenage boy with her super short ‘do, androgynous face, and lower-pitched voice. She’s much heavier than all the other girls, which doesn’t seem to bother her as she continues sipping from her McDonald’s soda and ensuring there is a continuous flow of conversation. She tends to overcompensate for her lack of conventional beauty by continually working to keep the dialogue interesting, even without any natural segues. She also tries to make each one of her friends feel special individually as she’s giving an impromptu slide show of photos on her phone, pointing out those that would interest each particular girl individually.

She points to a photo she snapped of her injured leg when she found out she was allergic to latex and Dramamine to Lindsay, who briefly looks up from her phone turned sideways to peer at the photo and sympathize about how terrible Sarah must have felt then. Lindsay’s the tomboy of the group, with fashion sense that’s about a decade late, wearing threads one might find in a cowboy’s closet – jeans, a plaid shirt, hemp necklace, and dusty tan sandals with two buckles. Her concentration on the game she’s playing isn’t even interrupted when she throws out one-line sarcastic comments that often begin with “dude” or “man” and focus on throwing keggers once she has her own place in college. Her seemingly lack of focus could easily be mistaken for indifference or callousness if you don’t listen and hear that she’s quick to respond to what her friends are discussing. 

She answers mostly to “Chicago,” who’s excited to be on her own at her new job at Six Flags this summer. Chicago, donning jeans and a Chicago Bears sweatshirt, is self-conscious and is constantly looking for other people’s approval. She tries hard to disguise the fact that her teeth would make an orthodontist rich, and nearly all of her statements are followed by questions wondering what her friends think about what she said. But since she mentions that her favorite pop is Diet Dr. Pepper, she’s definitely cool in my book.

“Chic” is also one who tends to ask a lot of questions, but only because she’s truly inquisitive. Shy as she is, she hides behind thick black-rimmed glasses and long thick bangs. While she often shies away from making many comments, she frequently, yet quietly, asks questions to learn about whether she’d like espresso or which roller coasters she might like to ride best.

"Chic," Lindsay, and Jessica

Jessica is the one who often answers Chic’s questions, and she’s as smart as her glasses may lead one to believe. She speaks as intelligently about espresso as an experienced barista such as myself would, and answers questions about over-the-counter drugs for allergies as if she has had experience. She cares more about her studies than she does about her fashion sense, as her plaid pants, white t-shirt, and army jacket doesn’t exactly scream trendy. She’s also a fantastic storyteller, her stories about her ambulance-driving friend who was called to a home with a full closet of sex toys punctuated with her infectious staccato laugh.

Even though I still have my book in my hand with my finger nestled between pages 122 and 123, I find myself riveted with this smorgasbord clique. The conversation moves seamlessly between bottle-feeding a kitten, visiting the local aquarium, the best tore to find a clear backpack, their preliminary thoughts about what college is going to be like next year, holding wine-tasting parties with cheap wine they can afford, trying absinthe, what they’re allergic to, eating at Jimmy John’s, and the fact that Sarah was a gay pirate in a past life.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if you could track your past lives?” Sarah asked her buds as I reluctantly walked off the train at my stop after considering staying on past it after realizing that I sat for nearly an hour doing nothing but listening. Never have I ever just listened for an extended period of time, and I loved every second of it.

It made me wonder what else I was missing out on by actively participating in a conversation, so I tried to focus this past week on listening. I went to lunch with a colleague, and finished my sandwich before she had taken two bites of hers because I asked her to tell me about being adopted, her thoughts on finding her birth mother, and what it was like to grow up Asian with white parents. I’ve read stories about people being adopted, but never heard the story directly from someone’s mouth, and it was absolutely captivating. I learned about the extra measures Jimmy Johns employees had to take on $1 sub customer appreciation day and more about the one-child rule in China from someone who’s parents adopted a baby from that country.

Learning to listen was vital to my job as a reporter, but since then I’ve let those skills slip a bit, and want to cement them in place. How else am I going to discover if I was a gay pirate in a past life?