The Quiet Gravity of Being Seen (Walking in LA)
When you’re in New York, you’re used to chaos. People everywhere, moving in every direction. Actually, you don’t really *see* people; you’re just *dodging* them, like it’s a game of Space Invaders, where losing means getting shoulder-checked by a guy with Dunkin.
Not in LA. Nobody walks here. Everyone’s driving. I’m walking by Barnsdall Park, I glance around, “okay, I see… one guy.” One guy half a mile away. And no one. No one else. The sun-bleached sidewalk is completely, utterly empty.
Two strangers on this endless stretch of dust walking towards each other. It’s weird. You see them, they see you, and now you’re both locked into this awkward, slow-motion collision course. You think, “don’t stare!”. But the thing is, after glancing left and right – there’s not much else to focus on. So you look and look again – just to see if they’re still there, which of course they are, because where else would they go? There’s nothing out here except them, me, and exhausted palm trees.
And then… you just pass each other without saying anything. Ten minutes together, alone in the emptiness of space – then nothing. Nothing at all. An encounter deeply human and profoundly mathematical.
Two points in space, on two parallel lines across the chalkboard moving towards each other. The distance between us is in centimeters but also is in emotional gravity. As we walk closer, aware of ourselves and each other, the fabric of space bends, curves, warps — not with physical force but with the quiet gravity of being seen.
For a fleeting moment, we are connected, two bodies pulling gently at the geometry of existence, shaping the emptiness between. Then—whoosh! We pass. The curved space snaps back into euclidean plane. Flat, unbothered. Us, two dots, diverging – apart and away into infinity. I, to buy a Tommy’s burger, he to… IDK, perhaps, to catch a bus. 1 + 1 = 0 or 1 + 1 = ∞?