Sunday Edition: When Wonder is a Practice, You Feel Less Alone

Diary of a recent evening.

The Sunday Edition is Tuesday’s little sister—off-the-cuff updates I’d bring up over a coffee catch-up with a friend.

The lamb tagine on my recent solo evening

Two hours before an event I’d bought tickets for months in advance, I sat outside snacking from an oversized bowl of popcorn. I desperately needed a shower, but the exhaustion from hours of building furniture made the task of selecting an “outfit” and driving downtown feel insurmountable. All I could do was sit and mindlessly toss kernels into my mouth as I considered flaking in favor of a second serving and a movie at home. I hadn’t invited anyone, so the only person I’d be cancelling on was myself.

On the cusp of staying in, I swiped the last bit of popcorn out of the bowl, hopped in the shower, and drove downtown to a favorite Mediterranean spot known for its excellent falafel and hard-to-find parking. As soon as I arrived, I pulled into a spot a half-block (!) from the restaurant, and took a seat at the counter next to another solo diner—a bus driver who had chaperoned middle schoolers to a track meet, then bought herself dinner while they competed. We chatted during the entire meal, while I ate lamb tagine with pearled couscous, with surprising bites of mint and cubed of apple.

Issue #88: Why You Should Take Yourself on More Dates

Afterwards, I headed toward the venue and parked in a lot that required pre-paying at a machine—only to realize that I had forgotten my credit card, assuming I could tap my phone to pay. The women I’d been speaking to in line offered to pay for my spot, which started a conversation about their careers as artists, and ended in an exchange of our information as we walked into the venue to see author Aimee Nezhukumatathil speak.

“When wonder is a practice,” Aimee said from her podium to the audience of hundreds, “you feel less alone.” At first, the two didn’t quite fit together—”wonder” and “alone” didn’t strike me as poles existing on the same spectrum. She repeated it, When wonder is a practice, you feel less alone.

Wonder—the pursuit of new experiences and curiosities—is often communal. It made me think of an owl that’s always in the same hollow in a tree on one of my favorite trails in Portland. If there are others near me on the trail, I always wait to point it out to them, sparking a conversation that wouldn’t have taken place without wonder. And, it applied perfectly to my evening: I had made so many assumptions about my night—that it would be impossible to find parking, that I would feel rushed over dinner, that I would regret attending the talk when I got tired. But in choosing wonder (and making a little bit of effort), I had so many experiences and conversations that filled my cup to the brim. Read on for a few other, quick obsessions from the week (and tons of photos):