Elevator Coiceidences

This is my 9501 day alive.
Life takes amazing and strange paths, through countries, into rivers, across deserts, into elevators.
Elevators?
Yeah, that's right.. elevators.
I find myself moving from "Lobby" to floor 42 via elevator.
From the hills of Alabama, to the Nile River in Egypt, to Cains, Australia, to California, to Hawaii.. my life is a series of absolutely unpredictable events that, somehow, places me in an elevator with a person I don't know.
I have to stop a minute and wonder.
Wonder how these two lives collide.
Wonder how ME and THEY ended up side by side, in the exact same place, at the exact same time. Of all the places life could take us, we are both here riding in this metal cage, waiting for the door to open so we can end this uncomfortable silence.

I find it completely ridiculous that a tiny Asian woman and her 4 children.. and ME, can end up voluntarily in the same place. I find it completely absurd that a group of overweight Swedish tourists... and ME, end up in the same elevator, in the same building, in the same city, in the same state, at the same moment.
Our lives, perhaps opposites in every other way, perhaps opposed in structure and belief and pursuit - are somehow directed to the same intimate spot, at the same time. How curious.

Downstairs, I watch as a small group congregates outside the elevator, waiting for it to take them to their desired floor. I wonder what draws us together, to all enter this tiny box together, to be so close for a few moments and say nothing.
Their stories consume my brain.
I imagine the lives that each person lives.
The businesses that they are escaping from.
The retirement that they are enjoying.
I imagine their families and their pets, and their houses.
I imagine why they are here.
Why they chose this hotel, of all hotels.
Why they arrived at "THIS" particular elevator, at "THIS" particular moment.
I imagine what they are thinking.

I say hello to a person; and for a moment our life-lines touch. We were running SO close to each other, and now we have met. From 10,000 miles apart, to this exact (very compact) space. We were drawn by forces that we could not control, and could not escape.
A person from Japan, and a boy from Alabama have just met. I can't help but laugh. I can't help but be absolutely astounded by the complexity of life's situations, by the brilliance that pushes us toward one-another.

If we could see life, we would see lines all running parallel. Lines running all over the world, with their own ideas and concepts and loves and families - and SUDDENLY they cross.
The stories buried in the intersections of elevators fascinate me. Fascinate me. Fascinate me.
Ding... Well, this is my floor.
Peace.





(Andrew Tipton)