09/02/2026
Lately I’ve been sitting with the question: what do I want to have a bigger experience of?
This morning it showed up in a blood lab waiting room at 7:45am. I was early, sitting on a bench next to a man in a baseball cap. We were the first two there, slowly the space filled, and one by one, everyone else on their phones.
I do my best to leave mine alone in moments like this, not for discipline, just a refusal to fill every gap. So I let myself be bored, let myself sit next to a stranger with nothing else to do.
I felt nudged to ask if he was an Expos fan. His ball cap gave it away.So I did.
That was the opening, forty-five minutes later we knew each other’s path through baseball: teams, stories, families connection to baseball, this year’s hopes, last year’s World Series ache. He told me a story about his Dad coming back from WW2 when Jackie Robinson was playing for the Montreal Royals in ‘46, the year before the Brooklyn Dodgers called him up. (If you haven’t seen the movie 42, please do. Even if you don’t care about baseball. Let me know if you watch it.)
I love baseball, however, it wasn’t really about baseball, it was two people handing each other the version they don’t usually hand to strangers.
When we were called, we ended up in rooms beside each other. He passed by on his way out, poked his head in: thanks for the chat, take care. Maybe I won’t see him again, but holy smokes, it was so refreshing.
Here’s what I keep circling back to: before that chat, it was him, me, and a room full of people on their phones. This isn’t a judgment, sometimes you need your phone, and other times it gives us instant gratification. However, I wonder what we miss when boredom becomes a feeling we don’t sit in anymore.
If you stopped and asked yourself what you want a bigger experience of, I doubt many of us would say our phones.
Whatever I give my attention to, I strengthen. So I’m staying open to connection however it shows up, especially disguised as a baseball chat with a kind stranger.🤍
