In one fateful 20-minute Google session a few years ago, I applied for and was accepted into both a yoga teacher-training course and a mentoring program for girls. The same week in September saw the first day of both courses, yoga on Saturday mornings, mentoring on Saturday afternoons. It was all falling into place; soon I’d be some kind of supple superhero flanked by a bevy of intellectually powerful young women who would look upon me favorably after they’d taken over the world. That first Saturday, I noticed the same woman in both courses, a serene-looking person with a resting saint face. I was struck by what I thought was an incredible coincidence — can you even imagine two nice, helpful white writer ladies who are also interested in deepening their yoga practice?

Well, you don’t even have to imagine, because it happened! I introduced myself to her after the mentoring workshop, and we chatted about the funny coincidence. The following week, after yoga, it made sense to walk together to the subway to get into the city for the mentoring. She sighed a tiny bit as we waited for the F train, and I sensed the sigh was not directed solely at the tiresome weekend subway schedule. The train arrived, and we found seats side by side. I confessed to her that my heels have never touched the ground in a downward dog. Harmless little opener, I felt. She took her phone out as a defense as fast as you could say, “So what? ” She reflexively asked where I was from. I told her. She seemed despondent, but soldiered on. “When did you move here?” “A couple of years ago.” Suddenly exhausted, she said, “Remind me to ask you about your story when I’m less, like, crazy busy.”

That is how it came to pass that, instead of some small talk leading to an easy quietness, Warrior One sat beside Warrior Two in tense silence as they both scrolled through their phones. My reluctant companion believed that conversation had to be all or nothing, either teetering on ice or plunging into the unknown waters beneath. She didn’t know she just had to pull on a pair of skates and twirl around for a while.

That elegance was not accessible to her, I thought, as I spied a dog in a bag under the seat opposite us. His little black eyes shone. I get it; words are laughably inadequate when it comes time to express ourselves. My brain is so close to my mouth, yet in the time it takes for a thought to travel between the two and become a sentence, the meaning is diluted and fudged to something I don’t really mean at all.

But words are all we have when it comes to telling someone who we are, so we are duty-bound to at least try. I didn’t want a vapid exchange, and in-depth conversation wouldn’t have been appropriate either, and I had no intention of launching into either. The perfect in-between connection was small talk, but we missed that connection, so I was just a woman alone on the subway, smiling at a schnauzer.

Maeve Higgins is the author of “Maeve in America: Essays by a Girl From Somewhere Else,” from which this is adapted, and a contributing opinion writer.

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