Wasting no time today.
Drove downtown to go to work. Parked. While arranging things in my car, notice a guy standing at the railing at street level, above the parking lot, overlooking the harbor.
Hmm, I've never done eye contact so early in the morning. Why not ask him? No read on if he'll be a willing participant or not. I can't get a good look at him from this far away. I ponder this while I walk up the stairs to the crosswalk, which takes me even further away from him. I look at him from a distance. I don't have much data besides: he's there, and I think he was watching me when I was in the parking lot. He seems like he might be game, but I just don't know.
Let's go for it. I walk towards him and join him at the railing.
"Hello."
"Hello."
I do my thing: unusual request, experiment, every day, eye contact, 60 seconds, yada yada.
"Sure!"
Unexpected! I kind of thought maybe he wouldn't want to. Yay!
I tell him how it works and confirm that he's still willing to participate.
"Sure!"
Aware that he'll be looking into the sun, I ask him he'd like to not look into the sun, and he says it doesn't matter.
I start the timer and we begin.
"It's hard," he says.
"Maybe it's because you're looking into the sun," I reply.
He laughs. We don't speak for the rest of the 60 seconds. I can see more of his right eye than his left, so I look into that one more. We both seem quite relaxed. In the second half of the session I am able to sink into the space between us. I am conscious of the shape of my lips, not quite a smile, not quite not a smile. I feel a vibration in them, like they are twitching, but I know they are not twitching visibly. This has happened to me in other sessions, too. Not sure what's going on there. It occurs to me now (while writing this) that I don't do eye contact with my lips separated, breathing through my mouth. I want to try that next time.
This is also the first time I've made eye contact with someone while standing up.
The timer beeps and I put it away.
"I'm Josh," I say, and extend my hand.
"Lonnie," he says, and we shake hands.
There are no questions from Lonnie regarding the experiment. Interesting! I do not ask him if he has questions, or why he doesn't ask me anything, or remark on how it's unusual that he is just quiet, peaceful after the experiment. I just move into the next and final ask of the experiment.
He says, "Sure!" that I can use his first name and photograph on the blog.
I am pleasantly surprised and pleased.
I take his photograph and show it to him.
Next I pull my journal out of my backpack and give him the leave-behind that I wrote, and did not give away, last night. I also confirm the spelling of his name and write it down.
Before I leave I decide to tell him something about what I experienced during out eye contact. I tell him that he seemed very relaxed to me.
"I try to be," he says.
"This is very relaxing," he adds, indicating the scene of the harbor in front of us.
"I agree."
"Thanks, Lonnie. Be well."
What a great start to my day!