Walt Whitman's 'Passing Stranger'

Portrait of Walt Whitman

Passing Stranger

Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,

You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,)

I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,

All is recall’d as we flit by each other, affectionate, chaste, matured,

You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,

I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only,

You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,

I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone,

I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,

I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

Longing and the vow not to lose the other

I am someone who longs to connect with strangers. I walk with eyes wide open, seeking, honestly, probably overly seeking. I'm looking for the eyes of the other, to make that connection, even if in passing. I recognize this longing that Whitman expresses, this wish to know the other, this wondering about the other. It is one reason I talk to strangers.

His longing is also startling, for he imagines an entire life with the other, all contained in this passing gaze. He imagines fulfillment, that this is the very person he has been looking for, and he imagines having lived an entire life together, eating together, sleeping beside one another. An intimacy like no other, an entire childhood together. I wonder if you have ever imagined an entire life with a person you passed on the street, sat beside on a bus.

But the part of the poem I find most compelling is the promise not to lose the other. 'I will not lose you' Whitman writes. A vow to honor the stranger.

I believe that, when we choose to engage with a stranger, we are enacting this promise, to 'not lose' the other - to recognize the other, the connections we have, the intimacy that is possible and that may be occurring just because we are sharing the same temporal space, breathing the same oxygen, sharing atoms.

This not losing the other can also be a practice - enacted by recording the story of the encounter. Each a recognition of this longing for intimacy. Each a fulfillment of the vow not to lose the other.