Grateful For The Connection

(Editor’s Note)

Blogs are a relatively new genre– and a genre, by the way, that eludes definition. So do its rules and by-laws. I think this elusiveness is lovely, despite the fact that amorphous boundaries tend to make me uncomfortable. Whatever a blog may be, and whatever it should do, the fact is that this particular one has been, once again, neglected. By all appearances, totally abandoned. But here’s the editor, writing a note— which changes the blog plot from one that self-destructively embraces abandonment, to one that merely suffers the irritating hiccups of occasional (sometimes prolonged) neglect. A reader (assuming there are any readers) may be tempted to ask, “What happened?” For why and what-for did the editor’s writings disappear?

Well, I’m the editor, and after some reflection, I can tell you that for the most part, the why’s and what-for’s don’t matter a whole lot. Probably bits of relevant narrative will find their way out as we go; the rest will be left, like all the things we don’t bother (or want) to talk about, in the literary dust-heaps of the ages.

But one question is worth exploring at this moment: Why are we (the editor and her writing) back now?

I’d like for this post to address that question. Which doesn’t mean it will; not everything I wish for works out in the end. I’m just grateful to have a place to start again.

Pack the Anthology, Leave the Fluffy Jiggly Japanese Pancakes

Two of my sisters* and I have recently been recording some of our conversations with each other. It’s Mara Lee’s idea; she wants to publish a podcast from these conversations. What this means, amongst a myriad of other nuanced and layered things, is that our conversations aren’t always natural and spontaneous, aware as we are that we’re being recorded. Sometimes, surrounded by such artificial appendages as microphone/headset, a screen that serves as a mirror, and pre-emptive, imaginary audience judgment, we even get self-conscious, for heavens sake. Which further means, to me anyway, that I’m occasionally tempted to just… leave. Sign out. Excuse myself from the endeavor. But I love my sisters, and share their earnest desire to do good things, and so I stay. Following Mara Lee’s lead, we’ve agreed to talk about truth, about the necessities of connection, of being forgiving, generous, hopeful, grateful. Serious, deep topics… topics I embrace and find comfort in… and yet. When I attempt to speak about them with my sisters, my brain– frustrated by its limits and losses– wanders, and I’m shaken by childish impulses to rattle on about irrelevant things (this will out… anyone who’s read much of this blog may see my lapses into tangents and trivia).

I suppress most of these impulses, but enough find their way into the open air that I worry I’m becoming a liability to the whole podcast endeavor.

To Illustrate The Likelihood That I’m A Liability to the Whole Podcast Endeavor (AKA Fluffy Jiggly Japanese Pancakes)

To illustrate: A travel log of my recent YouTube views. YouTube views– we can agree on this I’m sure– carry all sorts of proof. Not that these topics are necessarily what I burst out with, but certainly they are indicative of the tangents and trivialities that eddy through my mind:

Micarah Tewers making a Valentine’s Dress (exclamation point). In which Micarah, per usual, sews– from her imagination and her hoard, with characteristically flippant/nebulous instructions to her viewers (sans the signature shoulder parrot)– a Regency-Meets-Twiggy mini-dress, in hot pink, with empire waist and yards of ruffles.

Various Parks and Rec clips, especially the one where Ron Swanson advises, on a news cast, that to fix a chewed-up table leg, one should rub a walnut on the scratches, and then adios the terrier that chewed on the table in the first place, because a dog under 50 pounds isn’t a dog, it’s a cat, and cats (according to Ron) are pointless (these links are generally courtesy of my daughter Meisha, who by the way loves cats).

How To Cook That– DEBUNKING (note the all caps) Tasty’s Fluffy Jiggly Japanese Pancake recipe. When my daughter Maurya learned how much I’m yearning for fluffy jiggly cakes lately (since fluffy jiggliness is missing elsewhere in my world?), she found the link for me.

Which leads me to the various Bollywood links another sister (Andrea) shared with me…and I of course watched. I mean, Bollywood! So much color! And mythology! And fluffiness, and jiggling.

I’ve watched how to make Macho Nachos, Breakup Pasta, Crepes, and Kale Chips (via You Suck At Cooking– this has nothing to do with my cooking desires, it’s just evidence of a middle-aged woman’s capacity to find shows her children recommend). I’ve watched John of the Vlog Brothers espouse washing sheets and towels, and hanging art on our walls (he’s hacking life, he says; I felt validated), and I’ve listened to both Vlog Brothers argue either for… or against? I don’t remember now… Existential Thought. And Batman. Either way… Squirrel!

I’ve listened to Brandi Carlisle, Lee Ann Rimes, Sara Ramirez, and Dolly Parton sing (each separately– but can you imagine the choir?) Brandi Carlisle’s “The Story”. Again, again. Every time one of them sings, I cannot sing along. I just cry.

But probably most telling, this Ted Talk: “Dementia is Preventable Through Lifestyle. Start Now.” (I’ve upped the ante on dark greens, avocados, brisk morning walks– and I’m reading more and writing again.)

And so– surely you must see, dearly beloveds: proof. I struggle… maybe not in thinking deep thoughts, but certainly in sustaining them! Their height, breadth, depth– ah, their weight! The responsibility they invoke.

Surely you must see that I have reason to wonder what the heck I’m doing, trying to be wise on a podcast with my deeper-thinking sisters. And by extension– what on earth do I have to say (that matters) on a blog?

But Then This Thing Happened

But then this thing happened. Things. First, my sisters and I continued talking without recording (or talked while pretending we weren’t recording). We explored ideas, shared impressions, listened well to one another. Leah kept insisting that in our search for truth, it was super important to seek to see others clearly, as God sees us. Mara Lee shared clinical (not to mention spiritual) proof of our need for connection. With intermittent floods of gratitude for Leah and Mara Lee’s collective insights and where they lead me, I’m realizing also that none of us feel particularly wise… I’m not the only one who is grappling here. I also realized that there’s beauty in seeking, trying ideas out, stumbling in the trying, talking about it, wondering and reaching and problem solving with people we love. Petitioning grace to attend– it always does, when earnestly invited.

Another seemingly unrelated thing happened: a heightened awareness of widespread trauma– not just of the pandemic, although its effects are indeed staggering. But beyond and amidst– people I love are struggling with cancer, thyroid disease, anxiety, MS, aging, loneliness, departures, arrivals, addiction. A dear friend nearly died (her medical team had to shock her heart three times before it would start up again) before a lifesaving pacemaker could be placed. Another’s brother died very suddenly of cancer. Another couple of friends went through an epic year of depression, another’s father is dying from the effect of diabetes– she is caring for him, and for her daughter who just had a baby. What a mix of joy and sorrow for her! She is, for the moment, in the midst of friends– but there’s been long periods where she’s felt alone.

And it Dawns on Me

I think there’s these lengths of time– whether it’s minutes or years– that we all feel alone. It is the risk of chronic aloneness that prompts me to write again now. I long for conversation, the hand on the arm; I find myself wondering how everyone is doing. I cannot bear the thought of all these my people being alone in their duress. Nor do I wish to be alone, either.

Tangent– two things. Thing One: I’ve seen how naturally and easily love can spring up– and am stunned by the beautiful places it can take us. I may not know you at this moment, theoretical reader, but rest assured, if I had even a small bit of your story, I’m confident I would just-like-that-so-easy fall in love with you; you would be on my list. This is due to the magic of seeing one another more clearly (stories help with that), not any inherent philanthropy on my part. Thing Two: I’m also painfully aware that my blog isn’t going to cure the world’s epic glitches or even assuage an individual grief. But it’s something I can do, a spider’s thread** of an attempt to contribute to our communal web of connectedness.

To April: This One’s For You

The thoughts of one of my beloveds in particular kept nudging at my mind: April, my cousin a few years younger than me. April wrote very kind messages to me years ago, thanking me for writing on my blog. My impression was that she was grateful for the things I’d written, not the clever or cool or polished way I’d written them. She was grateful that someone else had experiences she could relate to; she was grateful for the connection.

Whenever I have seen her since, this is still what I get from her: she’s genuinely grateful for our connection. Not just our genetic heritage– although isn’t having the same grandparents sweet?– but also that our lives have bumped and wrinkled and glimmered in sort of parallel ways. That as fellow travelers through Earth’s tricky atmosphere, we are compadres.

I think–no, I know– I’ve let polish, coolness, and cleverness (fluffy jiggly Japanese pancakes that they are) distract and discourage me, and haven’t just dwelt instead, more generously, on the experiences so many of us share. Or even the ones we don’t— the joy of discovering new things, of enlarged, vicarious memory. All of which connect us. We belong to each other; we need each other. I thrive on your stories, and the likenesses (and differences!) between us… and I need you to know I’m thinking of you; I need to reach out in gestures of comfort and assurance and acceptance to all of us, because I’m moved by what I can assume all of us are going through (life’s intensity rarely lets up)– and I cannot continue doing nothing at all to reinforce our vital connections.

So, April, this one’s for you. I have no wise words, but my random stories are back. I’m hoping one will make you laugh, or okay maybe not laugh but remember something? or at least wonder?— hoping all of them will help you feel not alone.

The End

Foot Notes, Because This is A Blog And I Can Do That

*I am one of six sisters. I also have three brothers, two of whom are living, and two parents. I have a husband and five autonomous children. Also grandparents not in this world anymore, and countless aunties uncles cousins nieces nephews and so forth. Enumerating my folk just feels important to me.

**This references “A Noiseless Patient Spider” by Walt Whitman. Mara Lee found it and embraced it as a metaphor for why she wants to gather truth and podcast about it (because she’s cool like that). This metaphor resonates with me whenever I remember the truth that out of small and simple things, great things come to pass:

A Noiseless Patient Spider

A noiseless patient spider,
I marked where on a little promontory it stood isolated;
Marked how to explore a vacant vast surrounding,
It launched filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you, O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, o my soul.
–Walt Whitman