When I was nine, my family moved from Washington D.C. to Hong Kong. We had moved several times before, but this was one of the first moves that I remember vividly. I’ll never forget the thick blanket of humidity that wrapped around my body when we stepped off the plane in our new home. Over the next three years, I learned what it felt like to stand between massive skyscrapers, to miss my best friend across the globe, and to experience the wonder of randomness, or what I’ve come to recognize as the sensation sonder.
You won’t find sonder in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, in fact, I didn’t know it existed until very recently. The word lives in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, by John Koenig, an ongoing collection of invented phrases that attempt to describe a concept which our current vocabulary lacks. According to Koenig, sonder describes the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.
From fourth through sixth grade, I took the same bus route from our home in Central to school in the New Territories. About halfway along the trip, we would stop in a congested intersection bustling with street vendors, commuters, and students. One day, I picked out an elderly fruit stand at the street corner from the crowd. For some reason, his white t-shirt, blue pants, and slippers caught my eye.
As our school bus inched its way through the congestion, I watched him haggle with customers or sit back to observe the chaotic scene ahead. Looking through the glass, it occurred to me for the first time that as I was being shuttled off to school, the fruit vendor would also continue about his day long after we were gone. My nine-year-old brain was baffled by the reality that the two of us would go on to have completely different, yet rich, experiences in the next 24-hours. In my imagination, I saw him going to the market, picking up produce, negotiating with stubborn customers, and returning home to his family for dinner.
However, as our bus escaped the traffic, I also acknowledged that I would never know a single detail. Did he have grandchildren? Was he happy? Was he sad? There was something comforting, unflappable about the way he stood by his fruit stand as countless people rush by. The deep wrinkles around his eyes hooded his gaze as he watched the morning scene before him. It was as if nothing could unnerve him – I admired that.
As we pulled away from the crowded intersection, the fruit vendor melted into the backdrop of my consciousness. Like any other nine-year-old, I was easily distracted by what lay ahead in my own world. For the most part, the fruit vendor lost my attention as quickly as he had captured it. Yet now and then, our schedules would align and I would see him sitting on the same street corner on my way to school. The contexts of our lives were so different, but for a few minutes, we occupied the same space.
Without realizing it, I grew to appreciate these moments of synchronicity. On one hand, seeing him made me realize how small I was; on the other hand, it sparked a sense of wonder that we were both experiencing life in our own ways. As a young girl, the fruit vendor was a gateway to a world beyond my limited existence.
Today, the feeling of sonder appears unexpectedly. In a place as transitory as New York City, it often shows up while I am on the subway. There is nothing like being sandwiched between strangers to remind you that in the end, we’re all in it together—for better or for worse. Yet even if just for a few moments, acknowledging that a random passerby has a life as rich and vivid as my own (if not more!) has the powerful ability to evoke comfort and empathy. It’s a gentle, and much needed, reminder that even though we might be raised, shaped and oriented differently, we are all in contact with the same struggles to survive, thrive, and rise above our limited life on earth.