Today at the Aging Conference

In front of me sat two nuns in green habits. Next to me was a thin Anglo man writing Arabic on a small pad of paper. He drew each symbol in the most precise manner. When he sensed that I was looking at his writing, he casually moved his arm to block my view. That might not be true. I might be imagining it.

The speaker was talking about how talking to strangers improves one’s health. He is a psychologist teaching in a major university, his research focusing on how people are reluctant to talk to strangers but afterward are glad they did. It’s more complicated than that but this was the core thesis.

In what I thought was going to be guaranteed chaos, he asked an audience of about 200 people to form two lines so he could match us up two by two to have a twenty-minute conversation about three questions, the gist of which was 1) what would a new friend need to know about you? 2) what are you most grateful for? 3) when was the last time you cried in front of someone?

There was a pre and post-test accessed with a QR Code, the results of which his research assistant in Chicago calculated in real time. Of course, our experience mirrored his research. We had low expectations for these conversations, but they turned out to be fun.

I kept staring at the backs of the two nuns. Why are they wearing habits in the first place and why are they green? I wanted to tap one of them on the shoulder but didn’t. Instead, I wondered about how they’d chosen that shade of green, a spring green, a new green, not a deep green, and really not an army green. A hopeful color. I should’ve talked to them.

The man writing Arabic had filled almost the whole page with his tiny writing. Was he taking notes or writing a letter? Was he just learning to write Arabic or had he grown up with an Arabic newspaper on the kitchen table? I don’t know. I didn’t ask.

On the way out, a friend told me that the last time she cried in front of someone (her husband) was last night at an episode of Call the Midwives. It made me like her even more.