Saturday :: 26 June 2021
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spreading.empathy
Cle Elum, WA
18 June 2021 :: Canon 550D :: f/5.6 50 min. integration :: ISO-6400Dear Stranger;
Last week I put my camera, tripod, and star tracker in my bag and drove to a dark location to revisit a hobby I was just starting to get into while I lived in Alabama, shortly before moving to Washington. I was the only one at the location, but I didn't really feel alone, to be honest. Not in some mystical kind of way, it was just the simple fact that on the outside it may have looked like a lonely scene, but I was trying my first real attempt at astrophotography with a DSLR and I was going through my notes like a checklist.
I was on task, and I decided to also make a video (shameless link: https://youtu.be/aB1Ra3bI0u0), because I still want to continue to learn how to make videos, learn how to tell a story using that medium, and to also find my voice. I don't know what my voice is yet, and right now, I'm studying things, learning things, and I think this is just part of the process in which that voice eventually does shake itself loose and so I look forward to seeing it emerge.
For now, I'm fumbling through words, speaking into a camera, trying to remember there's an audience of largely anonymous people behind the camera's sensor, and I'm also peering deep into space and visual time with another camera.
During one of the first frames I took, a small meteor crossed the sky and it made me smile. It's been a while since I saw one of them, and the most memorable one I saw was in Alabama, shortly after a childhood friend passed away after their second bout with cancer. I like to think these happen for a reason, even if they may very well just be coincidence, but I did acknowledge the thought at the time, and I remember thinking, while looking for some familiar constellations, about how so many things are happening all at once, it's interesting to see what story emerges when one starts to pick out certain key events and trace their timelines in relation to each other.
For instance, that night, I stood near a small pond, but I was staring deep into the interstellar ocean, searching waves of energy and gathering photons from a period of time that I simply cannot comprehend, all the while, earlier that day, a letter had made its own journey from a friend (with a friendship timeline that connects at some point when I lived in Alabama) that, unbeknownst to them, connects two events to the same person. It's a complex, multi-dimensional kind of thought, and I'm prone to these kinds of dense fascinations that keep me perpetually amused, but in this case, this night: the connections were many, crossing different dimensions of time, location, experience, and emotion that it was interesting to remind myself that this letter began its life only a few days prior, at around the time when I was planning this adventure to spend my vacation day, this series of events set themselves in motion without knowledge of the other, where they started individually only to converge at a specific mailbox on a specific night, with specific words and after a specific set of harmonious yet uncoordinated experiences.
It's funny how life works like that.
My experiences have been dense like that, lately, and I'm still working to explain them, but in the meantime, there's a really quiet but buzzing fascination happening inside of me when I think about it. I appreciate it. I get really excited about it (and makes the explanations much more difficult to understand).
But, for now, this journey of empathy continues, and I feel like I'm just starting to get into the break-in process of how to use this skill. Breaking things in only comes through doing; rarely are there shortcuts and for what I'm doing, there is definitely no shortcut. I'm far, far from my comfort zone, but being this far from it is allowing me to see the truth behind that thing people always say about how the magic can only be found outside of one's comfort zone and even in just the first 19 conversations I've had, there have been some very uncomfortable ones, but it's showed me the power of being there for people in a time of need.
Two weeks ago I helped 10 strangers, and I'm now one away form helping 20 so within the week, I'll be levelling up again, so I wanted to make sure I celebrated that first level-up before the next level-up.
How are you, strangerfriend? What's something that you've been working on lately?
Magically,
-j
Comments (2)
Some nights, I come back to xanga and peruse my old site, slipping back into 2005 like an old shoe. Eventually, I always find myself here though... blinking over your words and pictures with an achy smile; feeling nostalgic, contented. Is it odd?
Scientifically, I desperately believe in coincidences. But emotionally, I feel there is some static floating between everything, sparking here and there, lighting up like a switch board. We are all connected, somehow, I hope.
I love to be reminded that in life, sometimes, we might make a choice that seems insignificant, maybe even careless, but it lights up someone else's timeline in a way that is magical, special, buzzy.
Also, thank you for your note, and the space you left, literally, on the page for me.
@sleepysouthie: To be honest, I'm not sure if it's odd. I don't think it is–I see it as reasons for doing so that are meaningful for you and that's something I respect just as that. Speaking only for myself, I find myself coming back here to find some kind of safety–a place to be myself in addition to some kind of stepping into a time machine of sorts for a good shot of nostalgia. I think it's been a way for me to recalibrate.
I still don't know how to explain coincidence, or at least the ones I experience, that would convey to someone why I find them exciting and meaningful–to think about and have an appreciation for the decisions that get made, the handoffs or maybe even delays, the overwhelming possibilities of things that have to happen to bring a meaningful event into a serendipitous existence. In the end I know I take some comfort in knowing that there are people out in the world that can independently validate the existence of the experience...
...and by virtue of doing so, validate, in a way, that I exist, that these friends exist, and that somehow, yes, we are all connected.
Whether from a "Pale Blue Dot" kind of view or from a more personal connection of meanings, the sheer fact that two letters, written 5 years apart, are found and are about the same person, essentially a full start-to-finish arc of a chapter from a much larger life story, it does amaze me that it all happened to just pan out that way.
And to know that the circumstances for that happening, for me, tell me also that we don't have to hurt alone.
The time away taught me the meaning of, and what I find important and essential in a friendship, reasons for gratitude and room for me to grow. But this static floating between everything, sparking here and there, lighting up like a switch board is something that resonates and once again, I can't explain, but I agree.
And maybe that perpetuates the curiosity, too. Keeps it fresh.
Nevertheless, thank you as well for the note, for setting off this chain reaction of curiosities, but also for the most unique friendship over these years. It's still hard for me to explain to people, I must admit, but I also know magic is that way, too, and I'm okay with that because a sense of wonder is sometimes really hard to find these days.
Sending hugs to you and the fam; I'm here for all of you.
Also, kites. I'm really glad she enjoyed flying a kite.
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