I came across the word ‘sonder’ recently in the wonderful Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.
- n. “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness”.
Apparently it’s noun, though I’d use it the same way I’d use ‘wonder’, as a verb.
Nonetheless, I found myself the other evening sondering away to myself on the train home from Dublin. I’d always be at it anyway. Part of the joys of people watching, in Hanoi or in Dublin or back home.
“What do they be at?”; “What do they be thinking?”
A worthy pastime in itself, sondering with intent or without.
Rain drizzled down the windows in little showers but the sun kept threatening behind the dark grey clouds in the distance.
I’m always fascinated by the unique vantage point you get into people’s back gardens or even the back way into their field that you get only from a train. Just the different angle of a town you get that you never usually see.
The train passes the back of my Dad’s house and it does make you wonder (sonder?) what he’s up to when you’re nearly home from Dublin.
By definition, nothing else can claim the viewpoint of the train, on its tracks, which have probably been there longer than you or anyone in your family who’s still alive, as houses and buildings popped up around them over the years.
The train has a window into a secret world.
Being on a train is almost like being in a model railway if you think about it long enough.
Shtop.
The train is ideal for it as you only get a passing glimpse into these worlds and situations and scenes and setups, and sometimes if you’re in the mood for it it feels like they’re set up in those moments just for the benefit of you and the trapped model tourists on the train home. Like the toys in Toy Story when Andy bursts into the room, falling back out of character when the train passes.
Sometimes you nearly would pose for the train when it passes, wouldn’t you? Cock the hand and wave ‘til it’s gone by.
Anyway, today I got some sonders, or had some sonders, not about people, and their lives and their stories and their routines and their hopes and dreams – but about the animals.
I passed big herds and small herds and solitary animals as I stared into fields all the way home.
Cattle. Sheep. Horses.
In their various groups and formations and poses along the way. Grazing or standing or lying or scratching themselves up against a fence.
All with their own story.
Somewhere in Kildare or maybe Laois I was struck by the size of a herd of sheep scattered across huge fields, bigger than you’d see at home – and just the beauty of their fleeces. They looked extra white in mix of evening sun and shower. Some of them looked happy or at least content. Maybe they’d enjoyed the wash.
Somewhere in Roscommon two jeeps caught my attention as they maneuvered to trap a few dozen sheep in a crush between two gates. A few lads doing a job on a Monday night. I could only see the backs of the mass of sheep, few faces, so I couldn’t really get a grasp on their take on the situation. I was more interested in the six or seven cattle over the way, standing in a neat enough little row over the wall – watching.
My gaze locked onto their faces for that few slow-motion seconds, as you do when something catches your eye from a moving train. The world flies by in slow motion, the object of your stare locked in place, Biocentrism and Einstein’s Theory at work.
Trying to get a handle on what they were thinking. Were they afraid? Concerned? It’s hard to think of the right word – or ever know if you’re right – when they’re a different breed of animal. Sure it’s hard enough when they’re human.
I can still picture the looks on their faces but still don’t know what they were thinking.
That’s how it is sometimes.
Somewhere in Mayo a few miles out from Claremorris we passed my Dad’s farm, just in off the main road. I could see two groups of cattle in two different fields, separated by a third. My unique vantage point meant I could see both of them but I’m not sure if they knew anything about each other.
Either way, they wouldn’t see anything now ‘cos they all had their heads down in the grass, munching, necks straining looking like they had their heads buried in their smartphones.
Being completely ignorant of their grazing cycles, and to farm matters and the real world in general, I wondered (sondered?) if those hungry cows ever had any relationships, or any other dealings, with one another.
Do they ever think about each other? Or just stick to their own.
Somewhere in Claremorris I got off.