When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe. ~ John Muir
I think sometimes we de-value how powerful connection is. We think we are connected only if we have deep relationships with our loved ones or romantic partners or children.
Or we think we will find connection when we finally meet that special someone or raise children of our own or get married.
When really, it doesn't mean any of that.
I have connected with strangers in the most profound ways that have provided me with a knowing that we are all much more connected than it seems.
Years ago, when I lived in Santa Monica and was a smoker, I used to get restless at night in my apartment and being that I wouldn't smoke in the house, I would get in my car and drive down to the Promenade.
It would be late at night and the balmy summer weather would be inviting. I would take myself to the one café that was open at 10 at night and sit at an outside table where I could drink my coffee and smoke my cigarette and write (I always brought my notebook).
If you've ever been to Santa Monica, you know there is a huge homeless population. I would run into them quite often on my walks on the beach. You couldn't help it. They were everywhere. They knew a beautiful spot just like anyone else.
Anyway, I was out at this café, it was around 10pm and I had my smokes on the table. I was about to go inside and get a cup of coffee and a homeless man wanted to bum a cigarette.
Even though I was smoking, I was always trying to quit so it was fine for me if someone helped themselves to them. I invited him to my pack and asked him if he wanted a cup of coffee as well, which he took me up on.
In those days, the promenade wasn't the tourist place it is today so there wasn't a crowd of people out. It was the middle of the week. Back then, at that time of night, it was the homeless' domain.
The man at the front counter who I was buying the coffee from saw the man sitting at my table outside and asked me if he was bothering me. I told him I was okay.
Sitting down with my new friend, we took in the environment. It was beautiful outside.
I don't know if you've ever visited Southern California, but it was one of those evenings when the Santa Ana winds were blowing and the weather was still in the high 70s. You could sit outside comfortably in a tank top. I loved where I lived and the fact that I had this available to me in my neighborhood.
So, my new friend, I'll call him Joel, and I were both enjoying the weather and the smokes and the coffee and our love of freedom and I noticed the lunch pail he kept close to him on the table. It was of the square tin variety, the kind I remember using in grade school.
Joel probably looked older than he was because the homeless life weathered him so I couldn't tell his age but I guessed he was at least 12 -15 years my senior.
We talked back and forth. He noticed my notebook on the table. He asked me if I liked to write. I told him I did. He told me he wrote, too.
Oh really. What do you write?
I write poetry.
He was sorting through some papers in his lunch box.
Do you want to hear a piece?
Yeah, I told him. I do.
Joel carefully remove his thermos and sorted through his pile of well kept folded pieces of paper he had organized in a stack.
For a half hour he read me one piece after another.
Listening to him read there were a couple things that were clear to me that were contrary to assumptions people might make about a homeless man.
1) Joel was a highly educated and/or a well-read man. This wasn't someone who couldn't write. His use of language and structure were sophisticated. I could never write that well.
2) Joel was once a productive member of society. This wasn't a man who didn't care.
This was a man who cared deeply.
I found out later that Joel was a Vietnam Veteran having served oversees as a Nurse. He experienced too many deaths of people he loved to come back completely unaffected. He regret not being able to save them.
You're a good writer, I told Joel. Thank you for sharing that with me.
Thanks for listening, he said.
We didn't have to carry on any more than that. The connection had been made.
I would most likely never see Joel again nor would he seek me out for any reason. There was just this moment of connection sitting in a café on 3rd street at 10pm on a Thursday night, a couple of people sharing cigarettes, a cup of coffee and poetry.
How many years has it been since this meeting and I still remember the iron fence that extended around the cafe patio, the temperature of the winds that wrapped around us that night. We all have stories to tell.
I have had some of my most profound experiences with people that society might deem unacceptable.
And yet what makes us so different?
In our humanity, we are all connected. There is no place where I end and you begin. At a cellular level, energetically, there is no separation.
I get this email every morning from MMT (Makes Me Think): Every day encounters that provoke deep thought.
This morning was a submission from a woman:
Today, 45 years worth of memories later, the memory that jumps out at me most is when we first met and he was helping me replace my door knocker and we spent an entire hour in the door knocker section at Home Depot carefully comparing the knocking sound of each one.
Imagine that. An hour in the door knocker section comparing the knocking sounds of each one.
How random is that? So simple and yet so beautiful.
It is these sorts of connections with strangers, that are not such strangers, that we know we are not alone.
We are each affected. And we affect each other.
We are all in this together.
I'll leave you with an inspiring video that came across my email this week of connection and kindness and beauty: Check it out
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