Been thinking about my lonnnnnnng time love of paper chains, rooted back in elementary school, when a homeroom teacher moved our desks into a circle & we made yards & yards & yards of green & red chains which miraculously transformed one morning into a huge Christmas tree, a line of chains coming down from a high-up-there ceiling beam, secured on the floor to the right of each desk. Still remember is wildly cool! Have loved paper chains - and their possibilities ever since.
Now, some people get really complicated with their chain, making them things of dazzling beauty & ingenuity, but give me that classic simple 1" strip pasted (oh, memories of the taste of the old-fashioned pasty school glue!), taped or even stapled variety!
I think of the healing chain with quotes & "You go, girl!" words of encouragement that followed Mom in those last, awesome years, traveling from Holy Redeemer to Elkins Park, from Inova/Alexandria to St. Mary's & finally to her snug bedroom at the end for the 2nd floor hall. How I wish it hadn't finally fallen to tatters after many a put up & take down & put up again.
That brightly colored chain, teamed with enlargements of SARK's artword, put pizzazz into even the then-grey grey grey rooms at Elkins Park Hospital (now vastly improved, but so awful back in the day it inspired the snappy pictures & chain).
Just yesterday, I connected two young women who are special to me, one living out West, the other about 7 minutes from our house. They just called out to be tagged up & am happy I did. Good things will flow for the world!
There are few things in this world that I enjoy more than a good connection, whether I'm observing it, am part of it, or instigated. I've written about it before & will again. Connection, relationship, partnership, relationship of every sort & stripe, LOVE. Just writing those words down gets me giddy.
When your heart overflows with the beauty of a concept, difficult & dicey life circumstances don't matter. This over-the-top connector came from a family that shied away from connection, that seemed most at east with the assurance of disconnection. And there I was, at its tag end, as determined a connector as any train coupler!
That fierce love of connection helped get me through a funky early life, helped me bond with scores of authors & other mentors who - oblivious of their role in keeping me steady enough, long enough to get to John - wrote heart-healing, soul-strengthening books & articles, recorded spot-on cassettes & cds, presented illuminating PBS specials & YouTube presentations. Through my connection with them, it was possible to develop & nurture a healthy connection with my self.
That love of connection is what drew out my inner Life Expansionist, riles up the Elder Care Anarchist. Am personally offended seeing so much disconnection around me. We are born to be in relationship, from first breath to last.
There are a slew of reasons why our current elder care culture is so gosh darn abysmal here in the USA. Most of those reasons are not going to change, some are on track to get considerably worse. So, how do we take what we have, what's out there, whatever is to come, and forge those materials into a better, stronger, more beautiful chain connecting us all? Now, THERE is a true north purpose.
I hear friends & pleasant acquaintances, colleagues & utter strangers, gripe & moan about the problems they're having with this person or that, the difficulties they face with family or at work, in their church or schools, with buddies or adult bullies. Often, they are stymied & stopped by such difficulties.
Here's a lovely irony I knew forever, but was underscored & highlighted over the past 27 years - all the wretchedness, the difficulties, the regrettable circumstances & sticky situations contain vital lessons, as well as opportunities for some sort of renewed relationship, connection. Maybe not with the person you hoped, maybe not in the way you desired, but it's there.
Life is a link of forged chains, each strip its own color, each important in its own way, each there to help us find our true north purpose or lead us deeper into that.
That might sound too Pollyannish for many, but it's the truth. My life is a great example. Being SO different from dominant family members - polar opposites - who seemed inescapable, it would have been easy to get emotionally mangled, even crushed. But for whatever gloriously fluky reason, the moments with them, the experiences we shared, the histories we have in common, became binding strips in my chain of life.
What delicious irony, being born into a family of connection distrusters - got to experience & learn from a lot of dark experiences without having to go through them myself. For that - and so much more - they have my deepest thanks. They added texture & depth to my chain.
At this point in time, am gobsmacked at how my life has taken on something akin to those desks in that ancient elementary school class room. We walked in one morning & discovered some unseen hand had changed them from row by row, with walking space in between, to a touching-each-other circle. Some unseen hand is constantly at work in our lives, doing what it can to get us touching, then anchoring our life chains to where we are, creating beauty & wonder out of simple stuff & wondering hearts.
Credits:
whileyouwereaway.org
evolvingperspective.com
en.wikipedia.org
colour101.wordpress.com
olderandwiser.com
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