Ebb & Flow

Okay, let's go back in time: San Francisco, August, 2001.

For a long time I've been fascinated by the transient nature of the relationships we form throughout our daily lives. You find this curious phenomenon in most service oriented careers. For instance, in my job as a nurse anesthetist I've met and conversed with 10s of thousands of people and can recall only a tiny spattering of those encounters. I think that's to be expected.

Blogged has intensified my curiosity about the ebb and flow of relationships, i.e. friendships, acquaintances, and the effect of one time encounters, even lurkers who show show up consistently on your site meter. I wonder if there is a rhyme or reason to these encounters or if they are truly like ships passing in the night with little to no effect on our lives. Bloggers, unless you've experienced the rare personal effort to meet some, are basically a name and perhaps a photograph (not necessarily a picture of the writer) that communicates with you electronically across the internet and can vaporize into obscurity at a whim.

What, pray tell, you say, has this to do with San Francisco, 2001?

While mulling this wonderment over in my cluttered mind a day or two ago I was reminded of an encounter that occurred at a meeting I was attending, and how strange I found it to be on later reflection and how much like some blogging encounters I've experienced in the last two years.

I was at the Moscone convention center in the heart of San Francisco. Having arrived few minutes early, as is my custom, there were only a few other people there. The business session was going to begin in a half hour or so. Entering the huge meeting room where some 3000 or more chairs sat empty awaiting the arrival of my compatriots, I choose to sit on the near side and noticed in passing that there were no other people sitting on this side. Further to the front and on the other side was a group of attendees from my New York delegation, but I chose not to join them and sat down to peruse my hand outs and get a perfunctory idea of what was to transpire shortly.

An attractive dark haired woman approached me and asked in that sultry, Georgia peach type southern accent, if I minded if she sat in the chair next to me. I glance around and think, Ahh, excuse me there are 1500 empty chairs and you want to sit next to me....WTF. however I said; "why no young lady please, have a seat." And as she did so I examined her face more closely to see if I could discern whether this was a person I should know from a previous meeting, but alas no, my mind drew a blank.

We exchanged the usual pleasantries; where are you froms and so on. It turns out that she was from Alabama , not Georgia. I asked her where abouts in Alabama and she said, Birmingham. I thought and said "wow, what a coincidence"; "A good friend and classmate of mine from anesthesia school works in Birmingham". She inquired as to his name and did I know at which hospital he might work. It turns out that not only did she know him, he was her supervisor on the heart team. We continued to chat until the session got underway and then she left to join up with her group. I've never encountered her again, neither there at the meeting nor since.

Curious don't you think?