Connection Stories This Week

I meet some pretty cool people out here on the interwebs (this was originally posted on FB). 🙋🏼‍♀️ I just wanted to tell you all hi today. ✏️ And write a bit about connection.

I had a deep conversation with a good friend yesterday about connections and how they work. My friend is wired differently and doesn’t do connection the same way I do.

For me it’s important to sort of meet people where they are. Be present in the moment. See people. Listen. Share.

Take a moment. Create the space for it. Allow the space for it.

I don’t always do all of that. Sometimes I can’t. Sometimes I’m in the middle of stuff. But sometimes I can. I think we’re all sort of like that in different ways.

Yesterday a newer friend in the real world but who I met through something online reached out and invited me to a super neat thing sort of spontaneously.

There was some serendipity in the whole thing because I was just hoping to see that friend the night before.

On my way to go to that thing I ran into someone I know who was having an emergency.

The situation unfolded in such a way that I didn’t go to the thing that my friend had invited me to but I did stick around near the hospital for the other person I knew who might have needed more help. I ended up with a key to look after their pets temporarily in case something went funky.

It turns out they got out of the hospital okay so that was good and key returned but I definitely missed the thing I’d been invited to. But that’s okay also.

The person who went to the hospital was very grateful to have run into me when they did and it felt like there was a sort of kismet there as well. Which… I wouldn’t have run into them if I hadn’t been going to the other thing.

We can’t know everyone. We can’t be connected to all of the people. I get frustrated by that sometimes because I want to do more and connect with more people and have deeper connections with more people. I know that’s not realistic though.

But I do know that I can do some things here and there to be a good connection in at least some moments for the people I am connected to. In whatever way that is.

We all need it. So much. We run into these scary moments or moments of celebration or just things that happen in day-to-day life and we need to be with other people in them.

We don’t all have as many other people in our lives to share things with as we might like.

But whether we do or whether we don’t, it can be just absolutely incredibly powerful to have connection with another person even if it is just for moments. For a moment. For an experience. For an event. Whatever it is.

It can be helpful to know that someone else sees you.

It can be helpful to know that there are people who care about you. Just because you exist.

Here’s another short story.

I was having a very tough day this week. I’ve had a couple of those the last few months. They are different than tough days I’ve had before maybe because of all the things.

You know, here we are. 🤷🏼‍♀️ < waves arms at all the things >

In another moment of serendipity this week, that day I was walking into an establishment out in the world of local strip malls and stores to do an errand.

Some people hollered emphatically from a vehicle and I realized they were hollering at me.

I went over and said hi and it was some people that I know through a mutual friend. I don’t know them super well and we don’t spend a lot of time together but when we do meet up it’s very authentic and present and loving.

I asked how they were and we did that. They asked how I was and meant it as a genuine honest question. I answered authentically that I was not in a good place and gave a quick summary of what I’d been dealing with that morning.

It was really quite something. Not everyone you run across is someone who wants to hear how you really are. But I knew the person asking me was being genuine and actually wanted to know. So I actually shared where I really was. Not all the details but enough.

We had a short but quite dense and intense conversation, and then wrapped it up because, you know, parking lot.

And then one of the people said to me, well we love you. And I said it back.

And that’s the thing. Sometimes you can just love people even though you’re not super close to them and you don’t see them all the time and whatever. But you love people in common and you’ve had experiences where everyone’s seen all that and you just build connection.

And you can just love people.

You can also just tell them that.

Doesn’t work for everyone. For sure. 100%.

But I can tell you right now that random run-in for me where someone I don’t know super well but who is a person around in my life and in my community of people just stopped out of the blue and told me they love me was pretty powerful.

I needed it. It was very grounding. I was touched. Sometimes we just need a little something from the universe or from humanity or something. And I got that something; right when I needed it. And that was an hour or two after I’d already been commiserating with a good friend about the things I was struggling with.

But it helps to have messages, support, connection, and love (however it shows up) from more than one person.

As I said elsewhere this week, it takes a village to have a village. We need people.

And a lot of these other moments where I’m interacting with people are saying the same thing.

The moments are with people where one or both of us is saying hey I see you. I care about you. I love you. I may not be saying that specifically but I’m showing you right here right now you matter just because you exist.

I’m talking about a mix of things happening here but it’s really all about connection.

We can meet each other where we are. In any given moment.

We can be open to sharing and connecting with people, especially when we have more capacity for that. Some days it doesn’t work.

Because I do that at least sometimes, I had an established connection with the person who I ran into yesterday who was having an emergency. And in the moment I was able to be involved; to be available to help if it was needed.

But how many of these interactions do we have all of the time every day as we’re going about life?

This post was inspired by me reading another Facebook connection’s post about a few hours spent at a mall having very authentic and present conversations with people just in the course of doing errands.

It brings depth. It brings interestingness. It brings humanity. To our day-to-day experiences and interactions. Again, when we have the capacity.

Anyway. I talk a lot about connection and community. This is some of the stuff about how we do it.

As things get harder, more complicated, more intense, more unstable, or whatever up in our society, these things are going to matter more and more and more. Absolutely.

It is a skill set that can help us in ways we can’t even imagine yet. But it’s going to matter a lot.

So the more we can do now to work on this skill — connection — and how we can do more connecting will help us out as all of this whatever unfolds.

Keep the faith, in us and in our humanity.

We go forward together.

❤️❤️❤️

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Vanessa Burnett is the director at Fierce Community. This nonprofit work promotes civic engagement through connection, community, creativity, leadership, empowerment, alliances, and resilience in an era of societal disruption. It’s through-finding and change-making even in the midst of rising instability. Vanessa is a social entrepreneur, advisor, and empower-er with a systems-level understanding of the pieces and parts that modern society needs in order to survive. She has over 25 years experience in resilience-building, civic engagement, coalition-building, critical infrastructure, systems thinking, big disasters, catastrophes, wildland fire, emergency management, incident management, land management, park rangering, homeland security, continuity of operations (COOP), continuity of government (COG), technology innovation, public communication, and disaster information sharing. Email people@fiercecommunity.com to set up a conversation. This Substack channel does not knowingly use AI.