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| Jared Thomas Class of 2020 |
Let me start by saying that I am not stranger to being lost. In fact, in some respects, I’d call it one of my strengths. Give me time to walk around, to wander, to lose myself and I will. I’d like to think it’s for some romantic reason, like that I love the architecture or that I get a little too steeped into the soul of the city, but that’s not the case. The truth is that my sense of direction is my father’s and my desire to explore is my mother’s and these tend to mix in the world’s most dangerous, aimless cocktail that’s left my on the wrong side of the tracks more than I’d like to admit.
This, though, was different because, for the first time in my life, my lack of direction was not my own fault--the woman in front of me, a white powered wig and frumpy purple scarf wrapped in a set of mannequin glasses, hesitated for a just a bit too long, straightened her ailing heal with just seconds more of hesitation and left me watching the door close from exactly the wrong side on the Metro in our nation’s capital.
First and foremost was the panic. This was, regrettably, my first real experience on a subway, much less by myself. Everything seemed larger than life, miles and miles of piped metal and steel wrapped in cryptically colored labels that might have been useful had they not long ago faded from existence.
Emerging from the metro was an experience unto itself. D.C is a beautiful, wild city, filled with colorful streets and even more colorful people. The first time I stepped off that plane, I was in awe. My eyes were filled, maybe for the first time in my life, with something real and beautiful and made of age-old marble. Stepping on to the platform, I realized I was somewhere near the Department of the Treasury and, had I a functioning cellphone (or half a brain), this would have maybe offered some real assistance. The only thing I knew was that I had to find way my way to the National History Museum, a place I had never been from a place I couldn’t begin to put a name to.
Don’t ask me where it was. I didn’t know then and I really don’t know now.
As I wandered through the streets, I could feel time tick. The pavement was heating up and I, drenched already in a three piece suit, could feel it slipping by. I looked like I belonged, or so I thought, but I know, deep down, that I probably have never looked more like a hopeless tourists, a Kentucky boy lost in the big city than I did right then. That moment, hunched on the street corner, a five-dollar bill crunched in hand and the sky a lost shade of cloudy blue, was when I had my first conversation with a homeless man.
I have not avoided the homeless in my life. I've volunteered in shelters, given out food, worked in kitchens,etc…but I had never, until then, actually spoken to a man on the street in any real capacity. He approached me, all toothy grins and extended hands, with a laugh and asked if I was lost. I didn’t have it in me to lie to him-I chuckled a bit and told him I was. That’s when he wrapped his arm around me and yanked out a colorful, plastic map from his backpack.
“We are here. Where are you going?”
Minutes later, he handed me the map with a simple, relaxed smile. I tried to give him some money, but he resisted and, soon had disappeared into the teaming crowd, leaving his crumpled map sitting used in my hands.
I don’t know his name and I don’t know where he went, but he told me to get a rental bike, so I did. Let me first say that those bikes aren’t cheap, fast or anything close to an appealing adjective, but, as I had learned, I was far, far too estranged from my destination to walk. So, I gave up my last vestiges of locality and I took off. If the city’s beauty is in its details, its magnificence is in its blurs. It’s one world altering monument after another that, after a while, makes it all feel the strangest type of ordinary.
As I road through the city, I found a drummer on the side of the street that was jamming with pots and pans, rocking up and down with the breeze. He smiled as I road by and offered a casual thumbs up.
A balding man in a “Free Hugs” T-shirt rushed at me from the stairs of the Smithsonian, nearly knocking me off my bike with a “Here you go, man” and a laugh. Normally, I would have been bothered, but I’ve never been one to turn down a good hug.
A few teenagers, loitering by a garden made of tulips, pointed me down the right street after lightly teasing me about what little remained of my accent. If not for them, I would disappeared down an alley way and been gone for hours more.
An oddly maternal Hispanic barista took me into a hole in the wall coffeeshop on a forgotten street corner and told me to breathe with a laugh. She made me a croissant and let me charge my phone to call my friends. I found them, eventually. I staggered into a dimply lit pub almost four hours later, exhausted, disgusting, but safe… and I can't help but think why.
It certainly wasn’t on my own merits. On my own, I would been lost, left alone in DC with a stained suit and a missed flight as the night approached. Instead, people, big and small, from all walks of life, quite literally banded together to make sure I made it so far from home. Of course, they didn’t know they were working together-- there was no big, secret network of humans collaborating to save my skin. There were just people.
I don't know what makes people good and I don’t pretend to. Frankly, it doesn’t matter. What DOES matter is that they are. When people have the opportunity to help a stranger, they do. Trust me. I know first hand. Maybe it was because I looked like a lost puppy on that grey deathtrap, but they did. Whether it was just a kind smile, a set of directions or a simple map, people helped.
It’s so often to forget this. In today’s world, the news seems less like news and more like a warning: “People are going to hurt you”, it screams. “People are going to trick you”, it intones. I disagree. I think…I know there is room for optimism left in this world. If there wasn’t, if things were truly so bad, so hopeless, so lost, I would still be.
The sound of despair is a closing door, but it’s also a chime of hope. So embrace the open spaces. Let yourself get lost. Don’t be scared because no matter how far you are from home, you are never alone…not really.
It takes the worst of days to bring out the best in us.
It takes the worst of days to bring out the best in us.
Jared Thomas, of Cynthiana Ky., is a freshman McConnell Scholar studying political science and economics.