We come alive together.

I spent last Friday night in a couch with my friend, blankets wrapped around my legs and feet. I let myself fall into her beautiful eyes as we talked and laughed. It’s been a long time. We’ve had some beers and wine, from time to time she goes to the window to vape and I snuggle deeper into the couch. It’s raining outside, I think.

We talk about connection: what makes some connections feel deeper than others? Is it simply the stars aligning, my very specific mood on a given day matching that of another, a chance? Can I create the conditions for it myself, so that I can feel more connected with people?

She points out how we connect in that moment, how our conversation is like a dance through which we bond. And I get this thought:

What if being in connection shouldn’t be the exception.

I know, it’s crazy. We evolved for this. For creating ourselves through the gaze of another. For living in small, close groups. Yet in many cultures we drift around, believing we are islands. That we have a self, that there is an “I” which, at its core, is its own.

We look down on co-dependence. Yet I don’t know any pathologizing word for the other side of the scale; being independent is often seen as something good in the cultures I’m from.

What if I wasn’t expected to make sense of the world on my own. What if another’s perspective is how my point of view forms. And also: that my way of seeing the world forms a basis on which others may become.

It is not about teaching, or preaching, or bending or changing another. It is about balance, and growing together.

If I speak my truth, softly, I am letting another become, just as I am held up and pushed forward by yet others. My points of view are not one, but many. They friction and conflict, they are not general or fit for any occasion; they don’t go to the same parties or make the same friends. I am the body which channels everyone I have met so far, and my aim is to make my span wide, so that many nuances and shades may fit. That is how I give space to others, and how I make space for the self. And when I am tired, I rest.

…

(This story told in pictures.)