Gratitude Practice 2020 Day 183: Connection and Disconnection
Been thinking about connection a lot lately. Being connected. Connecting. Bravely reaching out...crossing the bridge if your will...and then safety landing on the other side. Remaining connected. Strengthening connections. Being known... like really known. Being seen...like really seen. Really seeing others as they are...not how you hope or want them to be but with honest clear clarity generously celebrating and recognizing both the warts AND wonder and valuing both equally. Smooth easy seamless seams that teather and tie two separate things or groups or people together. What does it mean to be connected, anyway?
And then of course a careful examination of its foil eventually seeps in...what about disconnected-ness? To disconnect. To be disconnected. To unplug. A measured and determined break or respite. A steady stream of both intended and unintended...misfires. Mis-understandings. Missed connections. Frazzled fried wires. A jankie collection of mis-matched yet well intended parts somehow correlated but not really fitting. Pointed pokie edges that try as you may just don't... or can't... or haven't yet…. connected. Severed.
I keep thinking about all of the books and studies and films and documentaries that will be made about 2020 and this unprecedented time. Just think of the future college lectures and associated term papers written by a small national of current elementary school kids and soon to be born babies who learn about our current season of stretching and then reflectivity assess and postulate and recount the days and weeks and months that we are all just hoping we survive. Just think of those essays! All focused on how this global pandemic, increased attention on racial injustices, economic volatility, ongoing political fracturing seemed to spike dramatically all at once wreaking havoc and instability throughout the land...every man, woman and child affected. Creating both independent and shared adversity all at once...AND just as much independent and shared resilience in big juicy doses all at once. This crazy unprecedented time that is producing such fertile ground for both genuine connection and genuine disconnection to sprout like a backyard garden zucchini. Boom Mind blown! My natural nerdiness just can't wait to read those term papers.
What does THIS kind of thing do to a county? An organization? A family? A person? How does all of THIS increase connection? How does THIS amplify disconnection? What is the rate and speed of both? What has become more clear and connected and why? What has become more disconnected and distance and why?
No substantial answers to these questions or meaningful insights to share tonight. Just gratitude for these big thoughts that keep swirling around my pea size brain. Grateful for what is newly connecting inside of me...for the connections and the reconnections that are growing stronger. Inching my way towards gratitude for the massive stadium strength flood light that is 2020 that is shining such bright light and truth on so many...disconnections. Not all bad and not all good...they just are...and clearly all with a level of uneasy discomfort. Tonight, grateful for both the connections and the disconnections...and all the messy marvelous in-between.
