You are famous to someone out there

The other day, I came across one of those poems you hear once and keep hearing for years. The poem is called “Famous” by Naomi Shihab Nye. I came across it during an advanced creative writing class on poetry. In the poem, Nye describes ordinary, everyday things as famous compared to other ordinary things. 

For example, she talks about how the sleeping cat is famous to the birds watching him, or how the boot is famous to the ground or how a loud voice is famous to the silence. 

In a way, we are all famous to someone for something. You may be known as the friend who’s ready with puns, or the saltier than a potato chip roommate. You may be famous to your professors as the student who actually spoke up in class or as the one who sends the really long emails, maybe you are the one who is always early or the one who takes forever to leave. 

Right now, you are famous for something, even if you are only famous as someone who is always doing homework, or worse, the one who never turns in attends class. 

At the end of her poem, Nye describes how she wants to be famous to other people. She tells us that she wants to be the person at the grocery store who smiles back, she doesn’t want to be the person who is famous for doing something extraordinary, but famous as someone who never forgets all the things they can do. This challenged me to ask myself what I want to be famous for, what I want the people in Chadron to remember me for, how I want to impact the people I see every day. 

This may sound arrogant, after all, I am not the most important person, I don’t play sports, I don’t have superior academic standing, I am not an extrovert who knows everyone, I’m just a normal human. But, as a normal human, I have the same 24 hours every day that everyone else does and I can choose the attitude I present to others. After all, the type of fame Nye describes in her poem isn’t about the sheer number of people who know you, but about the amount of care that goes into each interaction, no matter how many people you may see. 

Whenever I am walking down the sidewalk from point A to point B, I am greeted and asked how I am doing about five times. However, only occasionally  does someone actually stop to find out if I am actually doing well. I am guilty of the casual “How are you?” as much as anyone. It is polite to ask how someone is doing, but we can’t be bothered to wait for an answer any deeper than “good.” 

For me, I want to be famous as the one who talks to friends on sidewalks. The next time I see someone I know sauntering down the concrete, instead of just mutually nodding, I want to actually find out how this thing called life is treating them.

 I want to be famous to shuffling groups, heads focused on slippery sidewalks, famous as the one who took the time to listen.