Send/Receive by Laura J. Oliver

My upstairs office, where I write to you and review client manuscripts, has three huge windows overlooking the street. I often pause what I’m doing to gaze out over the sidewalk, which, I swear, makes passersby instinctively turn and look up. The energy of observation appears palpable, but it causes some pretty weird behavior.

Like quantum particles, these people live in a world of infinite possibility of being normal until they suspect they are being observed. Then, they freeze up in contrived configurations. Couples suddenly stare straight ahead: “That woman up there is watching us! Don’t look! Keep walking!”

Dog walkers get stuck at the boxwood hedge along the sidewalk, feel the vibe, and after studiously staring at the pavement, glance up apologetically and wave their bags. I wave cheerfully back. 

In fact, I’ve begun to know people by their dogs—Mary has twin dachshunds, for instance, who can’t really be walked (short legs, high curbs), so she puts them in a stroller in sunbonnets, just their little brown snouts poking out, which has caused at least one baby-loving tourist from Delaware to recoil.  

There are power walkers, “No! Who said you look silly?” and those squadrons of tourists who, until last year, sped by on Segways, always in groups, as if to say, “Don’t judge. This is not weird! Lots of us are doing it.”

But it was weird. Not enough of us were doing it. 

It just seems that anyone going that fast should be making an effort. This is now true of the city’s newest offering: electric scooters. I’ve been thinking about this. Does “scooter” refer to the vehicle or the person riding it? I mean, if I say, “Do you bike?” would I also say, “Do you scoot?” And if I say, “Are you a biker?” would I also say, “Are you a scooter?”

But when the traffic beneath my window is nonvehicular, I try to transmit fleeting goodwill. We are all born with a sixth sense—our most exquisite means of perception– allowing you to receive and send flashes of intuitive insight. It’s that awareness that someone is looking at you or about to call. That you should turn left at the next intersection when you’re lost. Thoughts, and their accompanying feelings, are a form of energy and I am endlessly curious about the possibilities. 

There are young mothers in groups of two and three pushing plump babies in red strollers, and I beam them the message, “Pay attention, pretty mamas. These are the best days of your life– you will not pass this way again.” The mothers are often followed in the afternoon by grandmothers pushing the same strollers, who clearly do know the transitory nature of our days.

I admire the platinum shine of a middle schooler’s ponytail, the gray-blue of my neighbor’s new running shoes, the stoic efforts of the parent lugging the 30-pound toddler who has had a meltdown. “You are all so beautiful,” I think to myself. “Live long and prosper! Wheels up! Carry on!!”

 I imagine the man with the long beard who walks by leaning on his cane every morning at 10:00, tossing it aside unneeded, the runners from the local high school getting a second wind, running in unison until they are running to the same beat of their hearts. And you know what? With every good wish deployed through the air, I’m the one who is transported without effort. I am the one who is blessed.

We are a people, a nation, a tribe, a collective, a family of man intricately connected on energy waves you can’t see. Here’s the magic. If you think it, they sense it. If you feel it, they know it. We are all sender/receivers, but love is a ricochet. 

Can you feel it? 

Can you feel it now?

Laura J. Oliver is an award-winning developmental book editor and writing coach, who has taught writing at the University of Maryland and St. John’s College. She is the author of The Story Within (Penguin Random House). Co-creator of The Writing Intensive at St. John’s College, she is the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Fiction, an Anne Arundel County Arts Council Literary Arts Award winner, a two-time Glimmer Train Short Fiction finalist, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her website can be found here.