Relationships

Relationships.  A very powerful word, as all words are.  But, what has this word morphed into?  With the infusion of devices and their app’s affecting the attention span, when is there time for human conversation?  When does that moment occur that people meet, talk, and connect?

The other day I had an early doctor’s appointment.  The results of the appointment were the positive release from a surgical procedure that was deemed healed, at this visit.  It felt really good to get that information and to get back into regular motion and walking.  The surgery on my foot had had me either in a wheel chair or using crutches to walk around.  Let me say, neither is a comfortable locomotion and my feelings are permanently moved to assist others that may not have the option to not use these tools.  After the doctor’s appointment I stopped into a Starbuck’s for a coffee.

Sitting alone, sipping my coffee and contemplating the rest of my day, in walked another customer with John Lennon on his tee shirt.  I couldn’t help myself to make a positive comment about this man’s tee shirt.  As it was on a cold December day, on my way to work, on my birthday, only to hear on the radio that John Lennon had been shot at his home and was dead.  I made a comment about “all you really need is Love”, and how we are on a small planet and the condition of humanity makes us all one tribe.

My new friend Ian and I struck up a conversation, and discussed our lives our children and this and that.  Ian told me about how is son had survived a brain tumor, and how the “old church ladies” had been so wonderful - to a point that you wanted to almost avoid them because of their one endearing activity “the old church lady hug!”  I broke up in laughter, because growing up in southern Ga, attending church with my GrandMother, I truly understood the gravity of what an old church lady hug had to impart - both its spiritual power, and its inmate ability to constrict you like a large boa snake.  We talked more, as Ian is a photographer and I have a very novice attitude to enhance my photo taking hobby, but right in the middle of talking I had to let Ian know that I had gotten such a contact high off the expression “church lady hug” and that it had really brought up some past good feeling - almost flash back good.

Regardless, Ian is a person that I will call and meet for a coffee, because we connected, we interacted, and we communicated, and there was no texting, no FaceBook, just talk.  Ahhhhhhh!

You may see his art at http://www.ianfrankgallery.com.

Relationships, they come out of nowhere, and can be the best moments of your life.  Don't let the technology of distraction keep you from paying enough attention to see a relationship in the making...