second hand news comes to Patrick

Classes started for me today, and I believe that because I woke up and had a symmetrical breakfast, two cups of coffee with two pieces of toast and two apples, I entered this day with the true joy. Granted I could not initially find the building for my first class, and after stumbling into the correct room just after its beginning, everything was still looking up. The class was Reading and Writing Poetry, and as a side note the professor wore a sleek gray and black three piece suit complete with pocket square,and spoke with a very deliberate and almost theatrical aplomb (if you don't know me personally, these things garner a great amount of respect). You could actually tell that this man not only enjoyed the subject matter, but he loved to expand upon the idea of what a poem can say and he wanted to defend it from critics who found his love of poetic expression frivolous. But it was not what he said about poetry that I kept with me throughout the day. It starts as we were discussing the Ezra Pound poem, which I will place right here right now:

"In a Station of the Metro"

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.


The words are beautiful in and of them self. In the discussion afterwards my professor said that sociological studies have shown in moments that we make eye contact with strangers, on the train or bus, in the grocery store, walking down the street, when we make that brief connection and "give them that closed lip smile", we (almost everyone) believe for a moment we connected to that person and that psychologically we are going through the same thing. We make instant eye contact and instant eye contact causes a moment of connection. I know little connections like this happen to me, though few and far between. But I have decided to let people know I will empathize, as long as they are willing to make eye contact.