I traveled to the city and rode the subway. As I looked around, I saw no one that looked like me. Beautiful brown tones in every variation surrounded me, and my own lack of tone stood out. I felt different.
I listened, my ears could not understand what I heard. People talked, laughed, and debated in foreign words. It was a beautiful, mysterious sound. I spoke differently.
The clothes revealed fashion in another form. Some wore wide-legged pants and baggie jackets. Others wore linen suits and shiny shoes. Every color imaginable passed by in a blur. My black stretchy pants and grey oversized sweatshirt didn’t stand out, but I still looked different.
Mesmerized by the differences I could see, I looked closer. I saw a mom and her child buzzed with excitement as they prepared to board a boat. Not far from where I sat on the train, two people in love chatted intimately. One hand rested on the other’s knee, a wedding band proudly displayed. Students walked by laughing with friends. Employees reported for another shift. And, humanity looked the same.
In heavily accented English I heard someone say, “I’m almost to my stop. I’ll see you later tonight. I love you.” Love sounded the same.
In a sea of humanity, I pushed through crowds and saw wonder and worry. It made no difference what language I spoke or the tone of my skin. A smile is universal. One woman, too far from me to see but close enough to hear, spoke of her dog and how excited she was to see him. I missed my dogs, too, and like her, I wondered what they would think of the city. Life was being experienced similarly.
Then, I passed a display of street art. Vibrantly painted, larger-than-life on a building, scrolled the message my heart perceived. Everyone’s different and everyone’s the same.
How boring the world would be if everyone was like me. My entire hometown on the plains of Nebraska could fit in one single building of the city’s skyline, including the school, grocery store, and hair salons. And I see more buildings in the skyline than I can count. I feel small in the same way I do when I look up and see the stars scattered across the dark sky. The vastness washed over me, and the different sameness is magnificent.