At night, a city becomes a collection of lit windows. Each one contains a life that is complete without our knowing it: dinner being made, an argument ending, a song beginning in a room we will never enter.
The word sonder names the realization that every stranger carries a story as vivid and complicated as our own. I like to think cities teach us this without asking us to learn it.
We move through one another’s peripheral vision. For a moment, we share a crosswalk, a train platform, the red light at an intersection. Then the stories separate again.
The city is not a backdrop. It is a chorus of lives briefly sharing a key.
— end —