How could a stranger at sunset possibly know what I had to say?

By David McElroy · September 12, 2019

I was so absorbed in the colorful light show in the sky above me that I didn’t notice when a stranger walked up.

“It’s a different work of art every night, isn’t it?” the man asked. And I was startled to realize he was standing about six feet from me, watching the same majestic sunset with the same awe which it inspires in me.

People rarely join me on this hill at sunset. It’s in the middle of an old cemetery, so I guess I’m accustomed to being surrounded by dead people — but they never speak.

“I didn’t hear you walk up,” I said to the stranger. And then we chatted about the beauty in front of us and how it was surprising that so few people paid attention. I reached out to shake his hand and I introduced myself.

“Oh, I know you,” he said. “I’ve been up here with you before. I’m Darryl. I was with you a few months ago when it was so colorful around the water tower.”

I pulled out my iPhone and showed him my Instagram feed. He spotted the picture from July 8 and pointed to it.

“I was here that night,” he said.

I still didn’t remember him, but I didn’t admit that. The man seemed genuinely warm and peaceful, even though I didn’t recall ever having seen him.

For the next 10 or 15 minutes, we talked about all sorts of things as the sky continued to change in front of us and I kept taking pictures. Darryl just enjoyed the view and calmly talked about beauty and recognizing what’s important before it’s too late and the importance of family.

He seemed like a simple country fellow, but he sounded wiser than what I expect from some old farmer or menial worker. He seemed wise and warm in a strangely loving way, as though he couldn’t possibly have ever spoken a cross word to anyone.

He wore the kind of hat popular with farmers and truck drivers, the kind with an equipment brand name of some kind. He didn’t sound as though he was from around here, but I didn’t ask him where he lived.

He asked me what kind of work I do and I explained my role at the real estate company where I work — what I do now and what it’s planned I’ll do in the near future. I said it as though I was trying to sell him on this being a good career.

“Why aren’t you writing?” he asked with no apparent context.

I asked why he would ask something so unusual.

“You have a lot to say,” he said. “I can tell from listening to you that you have things to say and other people are going to want to hear. You should write all that down. And you take these pictures and seem to love these colorful images. You should make moving pictures to share all that.”

I felt a little uncomfortable, because Darryl had struck too close to home. Who was this stranger who was seeing this hidden part of me after just a few minutes of conversation?

I asked him what he did and whether he had ever been a writer. I thought maybe that might be why he observed something in me so accurately.

“I’ve retired from everything,” he said, “but you could say I’ve worked the dirt all my life. I wouldn’t know how to write if I wanted to, but I know what I see in you.”

Darryl didn’t sound like any farmer I’ve ever talked with, but I realize that some people are smarter and wiser than their humble work would make you think. Still, I couldn’t get over him mentioning writing and filmmaking. How had he perceived those interests in me?

Finally, I told Darryl that I need to go, so I reached out and shook his hand, telling him maybe we would run into each other up here again sometime.

“I’ll be seeing you around,” he said. Then he mentioned a couple of other places where he had seen me — and they’re local places where I do go. Still, I didn’t remember us speaking before then.

Then I turned to my car to put away my phone and my camera. When I turned back around, Darryl had already wandered off. I didn’t see another car, but it was dark by then, so he must have parked somewhere else and walked.

As I started the car and drove off through the fading colorful dusk of that cemetery, I couldn’t get over the odd sensation that he had known me in a way that wasn’t possible.

Was I really that transparent about who I am and what I need to do? Or was he just some mysterious angel sent to remind me?

It’s a full day later and I still can’t figure out quite what happened. The colorful image above is all I have left from last night, but the image Darryl left in my mind is even stronger and more colorful.

I don’t know what to make of it.

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I have changed radically about some things over the years, but probably none of those changes have been as great as the ways that I feel about people who are viewed as evil or criminal. When I was young, I was eager to see criminals or foreign political enemies killed. Today, I don’t view such people though rose-colored glasses and I don’t view them as blameless folks who are going to turn their lives around if we just think happy thoughts. But I can’t celebrate the death of anybody, even if he might deserve it in some ways of thinking about it. Even if it’s sometimes necessary to kill someone — and those cases are often debatable — I regret the death of someone who will now never have a chance to discover love and change his life. There are some evil people in this world, but I can’t celebrate their deaths.

There was a time when I was idealistic enough to believe that if a writer expressed his thoughts clearly and simply enough, any bright and honest person would understand his point. I know better now. We all bring so many unconscious assumptions to the things we read that we often see what we expect to see instead of what the writer intended. This is incredibly frustrating to me as a writer, but I’m trying more and more to just say what I need to say — as clearly as I know how — and then ignore the inevitable responses which show that others perceived something which was not intended. I have to write for those who “get” where I’m coming from, not for those who see my words through personal filters that change my meaning. I hope my intentions are clear to you and I hope what I write can be useful to you, but if not, maybe my work just isn’t right for you. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

I found out this evening that someone I casually knew killed himself last Wednesday. I didn’t know him well — and I never found him personable — but he had started work a couple of months ago at a restaurant where I go. He was a 26-year-old who struck me as a confused and unhappy person, but I didn’t think much about it since he stayed to himself and resisted my efforts to chat with him. It turns out that he had a history of depression and had a lot of gender confusion. He seemed very androgynous to me and I learned today that he presented himself as female in some situations. He was rejected by a romantic interest last week, so he went to the woods and killed himself. His body wasn’t found for three days. It’s tragic how miserable people around us can be and how we so rarely know the truth about things they struggle with.

I’ve been with people for most of this day, but I feel lonely tonight. I’ve had things on my mind for the last few days that I feel the strong need to talk about. I need someone to share my thoughts with — someone who’s interested in ideas and how they affect us. Someone who gets excited to discover new things and can find joy in seeing new ways those things might change our lives. I feel lonely tonight because I painfully remember what it feels like to have that — and I’m craving that sort of connection. I miss having someone I can call and say, “I’ve been reading something and it’s sparked some thoughts I want to share with you.” Those sorts of conversations have lasted for hours for me in the past — or for thousands of words if it’s an exchange of mail — and it feels wrong that there is nobody who wants to hear such things from me tonight. I used to think being lonely was about being alone, but I understand now it’s a longing for one particular person. The loneliest place to be when you need one person is in a crowd composed of people who cannot be who you need.

I don’t agree with everything the late Neil Postman wrote, but I would argue that no other recent scholar gives coherent structure to the last few hundred years in the way his books do. I’m currently re-reading his book, “Technopoly,” and I’m comforted to have a scholar give structure and definitions to things which I’ve observed and barely understood. I was enough of a technophile when I first read this book that I bristled at much of what it said. I didn’t want him to be right and it was easier to dismiss him as a Luddite. But as I see technology continue to enable an information glut which is changing society for the worse, I find comfort in his explanations for how we got here. I don’t yet know the solutions, but I finally understand the problems more clearly. I suspect that much of what we need to make life more meaningful can be found in things we accidentally threw away in the past to make room for technologies. I strongly urge you to read the book and think about its implications.

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