Day after day, I see the same people on Seventh Avenue. They are not really strangers and certainly not friends; I don’t really know them but they pass through the same spaces I do. We trade smiles and sometimes say hello. Sometimes, we even have short conversations.

There’s the guy who introduced himself to my sister and me at the Mojo. He overheard us talking about "The Catcher in the Rye," and told us that it was his favorite book. Months later, I bought a shelf unit from him at a stoop sale. Recently, he told me about his plans to become a veterinarian.

Then there are the people that seem to keep the same schedule as me. Those I run into every time I go out. It can be embarassing to say "hi again," again and again. But I do.

Some of these "strangers" make me curious like the handsome PS 321 dad who looks like a gray haired Christopher Reeves. And the interesting woman some call "Skirt Lady:" she wears a hand-sewn black skirt and a white t-shirt most of the time. Her style could be described as minimalist/Amish. 

Then there are the ones I sort of know: the parents I see at drop-off and pick-up day after day, or run into at the Mojo; who I know through the PTA; whose children have been in classes with mine; those I see at the co-op, the playground, or running around the park.

Over the years, I have developed an easy familiarity with the people who work in the stores on Seventh Avenue: the helpful women at the Clay Pot, who cheerfully check the prices of jewelry I can’t afford. The friendly woman at Cousin John’s who always remembers how I like my coffee, the man at Sound Track who asks my opinion of the music I am buying.

To make a list of all these people would be impossible. First of all, I don’t know their names. Secondly, if I did know, the list would be very long.

These are the people in my daily landscape, who make up the community that I am part of. Not really strangers, not really friends, they are the in-between people who people our lives as we walk to the places we are going; who show up at the same events we do; who happen to be on the street when we are.

There should be a word for it. Frangers. A cross between stranger and friend.