I’ve never been a stranger; the small town I grew up in ensured that. What I wore, said, or did followed me incessantly. Even people I didn’t know knew me through some distant family relationship. The atmosphere was stifling, creating a pressure to conform. Growing up with the same selection of people constricted my ability to thrive and change. I felt trapped by preconception. Slowly, I developed an overwhelming self-consciousness that lived with me for many of my younger years. The weight of eyes and the pressure of constantly being known exhausted me and prevented change. Only in escaping that space could I find liberation in being a stranger.
So I grew a love for travel, finding comfort in the being unknown, even if only briefly. I recall walking the streets of Milwaukee, dancing along the sidewalk under the warm glow of the streetlights, finally unaffected by glancing eyes. I was a stranger to them, bound to be a forgotten passersby. There was a sense of comfort; it emboldened me. Each time I was away, I got a taste of intoxicating freedom from the looking eyes and circulating whispers I had grown up knowing. Without the preconceptions others carried, I could be anyone. For once, I exist untethered to a history, existing in a vacuum, and with it came a sense of independence I hadn’t realized I was missing.
I am not alone in this feeling; artists across media and time reflect this idea in their art almost constantly. So why are people fascinated with the longing to flee? I think it comes back to the intrinsic desire to be a stranger. Because as much as we long to be known, another part of us pulls us away, desiring the sense of freedom that’s only found in anonymity. When no one knows your beginning or future, you can be whoever you want, and that space is where we discover ourselves.
In Noah Kahan’s song “Paul Revere,” he voices this emotion clearly: the constant push and pull of wanting to leave, and the fear that prevents you from taking the leap. Listening to this song was the first time I heard this sentiment voiced by someone else, which brought me a sense of comfort and validation. For Kahan, this meant leaving rural Vermont, a dominating wish throughout Stick Season. In the song’s chorus, he sings: “One day I’m gonna cut it clear / ride like Paul Revere / And when they ask me who I am / I’ll say I’m not from around here.” The future tense of the lyrics implies this scenario is only an unrealized wish. He’s fed up with small-town life and feels the call to discover something more, voicing his desire to skip town and meet new people without preconceived notions. However, he recounts the repetitive mundanity of his small town and laments, “If I could leave, I would have already left.” It’s clear he wants to go, but the action itself is frightening and impossible for many, including the people I left behind in my hometown in rural Michigan. And yet, even if impossible, the dream still lingers in the back of your mind.
This urge to escape your life, to pick up and become a stranger, isn’t restricted to small-town dwellers; it’s a feeling that can strike anyone. In Patrick Modiano’s novel “In the Café of Lost Youth,” Louki — a nickname for Jaqueline Delanque — is the perfect stranger. She’s an enigmatic woman who appears in the Condé Café as the other regulars attempt to piece together her life. It’s not until readers hear her perspective that we can understand her overwhelming longing to escape Paris. But it’s not just Paris she needs to flee, rather what it represents: stagnation, memory and control. She wants to leave behind the people who knew her and start a new life. In these ways, Louki’s Paris is not unlike my small town; it’s a place where the weight of being known restricts you from ever growing. You have to be able to leave your history behind in order to start writing something new.
This longing persists across media — the longing for escape that comes with being alone in a foreign place. It’s not just about escaping town, it’s about creating a clean slate. When no one knows you, you can be anyone, and so we yearn to escape the known.
The weight of these preconceptions is what David runs from in James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room.” Only when you’re out of the watchful eyes of those who feel they know you can you have the space to discover who you really are. In the novel, our narrator David feels stifled by the atmosphere of 1950s America and departs for Paris, abandoning his father in exchange for finding the freedom to discover himself. As he becomes a stranger walking the smoky streets of Paris, he struggles to do just that, yet at least he has the freedom to try. Though David’s story is incredibly different from mine, I saw myself reflected in the way he struggles to find his identity, even when taken out of the confines of his home country. Even though he may struggle, at least now, out of the watchful eyes and expectations of those he’s closest to, he has that freedom. David’s story reflects the life of the author James Baldwin, who similarly found himself leaving the US and going to Paris to be himself. The pieces of Baldwin’s personal life bleed into the story, reminding us that this emotion is not constrained to fiction; it’s universal.
I’ve always felt that art imitates life, and these artists, characters and stories are not so unlike my own experience of wishing to escape my little town, vying to be a stranger again. Instead of moving to Paris or traveling the states, I enrolled in a university hundreds of miles away, essentially throwing myself into the metaphorical sea, becoming a drop amidst an ocean of strangers. Just like so many of us here, it’s my first taste of liberation. It’s exhilarating, frightening, yet exactly what I was looking for. I took the leap, unlike the character of Kahan’s lyrics or Louki, but still, I wonder if I would have the resolve to go as far as David. Through finally satiating my longing to escape my own hometown, I’ve come to understand the characters in these stories and the lengths some will go in order to flee.
Reading and listening to these works brought a sense of comfort in the fact that people across time and cultures share these experiences: walking along the same unchanging streets, saying “hi” to the familiar neighbors and secretly wishing to leave it all behind. As I look around on my new college campus, each unfamiliar face is a new stranger. And through art, I can see that so many others have felt this call, becoming a stranger in order to become someone new.
The desire to be a stranger is a combination of that intrinsic need for reinvention, freedom, and the ability to change. It’s fascinating, timeless and frightening, not to mention on the minds of artists everywhere. Deep down, everyone wants a chance to be unknown, because without the space to be a stranger, how would we ever grow?
Daily Arts Writer Taylor Koski can be reached at tckoski@umich.edu.
