01 Mar The Meaning of Connection
In my Afternoon Tea series, I share nuggets of wisdom passed down from my mother, and the fierce women from both my maternal and paternal lines of ancestry. They are the source of all the work I do with women around the world, and I’m delighted and honored to share the things they taught me.
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Of all the topics to consider in this March of 2021 (or, by some views, the never-ending March of 2020), connection is by far the most compelling and challenging. Most of us have begun to hit some type of wall with this restricted year of life in which we haven’t seen friends, birthday parties are virtual, happy hours don’t involve the clinking of actual glasses, and the ambient sounds of pets and children are now normalized. Others have flagrantly disregarded these restrictions, but I don’t have the energy for that conversation right now.
Instead, I’ve been thinking about what connection means to us as human beings. As much as we might savor being alone, we cannot live long-term without some type of interaction. The absence of such has made for some interesting human moments in NYC — we all seem to be walking on eggshells. It feels like just minutes ago I was at the window at 7pm, banging on a pot with a wooden spoon in recognition of frontline workers who gave so much of themselves — and sometimes gave everything. It’s impossible to even think about it without tearing up, because we are still, to a large extent, a broken city. But like the buds of spring, we will return, and look different from before. Perhaps we’ll be better than ever.
Since my mom passed away just a couple of months before the pandemic caused everything to shut down, I often think about how she would have managed a year of being cooped up and reliant on technology. She got her first iPhone at 80, and did quite well with it, because it allowed her to scroll Facebook with stylus in hand, passing judgment on all the inanity she saw. There came a point, however, when all we’d hear is “This DAMN phone!” I’m pretty sure we’ve all had that moment at least 1 or 1,000 times. She ended up going back to a flip phone, using a larger tablet for Facebook and her puzzles. We had just gotten her started on video calling before she died, and she found that quite cool. She was a Modern Mary.
Which brings me to yet another form of connection. When her health began to deteriorate a couple of years ago, I knew it was time to start preparing myself — and our memories. So I have folders of saved voicemails of her welcoming me home from a trip, or saying “Love you, Jen!”, and others where she tells the story of her life, and I revisit those when I’m missing her. It allows our connection to live on in this plane until we meet on another, though I do feel her all around me. She is ever-present in my work and my thoughts, so the connection remains strong.
All of that is to say that connection can be a complex equation, and this month we’ll examine it in all its forms. Some of us are introverts, others extroverts, and still others ambiverts. I fall into that last category: I like to be by myself most of the time, lost in my thoughts, but I do love a good social gathering. And then I’m spent and want to go back to my books and notebooks. But I’d love for that to be a choice!
With love from NYC,
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Photo: Jon Tyson
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