Connection We Are Gifted

Audio option here: https://venture-within.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Connection-we-are-gifted.m4a

Connection can be found all around us if we pay attention.

Sometimes we long for it. Sometimes connection seeks us out when we are not looking. When the sight of something familiar flickers across our panorama unexpectedly, and a memory yawns awake. Or perhaps a slow “oh yeah” grin lifts our faces for a moment.

It’s the connection we may have with the almost forgotten that binds us closer to those in that familiar place. Those that matter to us in some timeless way.

As these days rapidly approach the third and final stage of my trip through the States, connection is what I feel permeating my travels. Amidst the mad-dashing between cold weather and less-cold weather places, it’s this connection that has kept my spirits warm, if not my fingers and toes.

Connection is found in light banter between me, belted in the aisle seat, and the older, bearded man snug in the middle seat beside me. From where we sit — back in the second to last row — the backs of heads of other passengers lining down the middle of our plane, eagerly shuffling their carry-ons under the curved ceiling, my neighbor and I express our doubts.

Together, we strangers wonder out loud if the herd in front of us will assemble and exit quickly enough for the both of us to catch our connection in Charlotte. My connection with him is brief, our urgency shared, and then we are out! Hustling to be air-born once more, and flying towards different cities, likely to never again meet.

Connection shows up in the form of a busy, tired friend, who jumps into the airport pick-up van anyway, solely as a passenger, just to fetch me and greet my arrival in the middle of a chilly night after his long day and my long flight.

Connection is the feeling that warms you as you exit the revolving glass doors of the Baggage Claim into a crowded night of headlights and frosty breath, knowing there is a friend out there in the chaotic cold dark.

Looking left, the headlights in fog guiding the silhouette of this friend in my direction, the outline of his beanie and pocketed hands walking towards me with a grin I am sure is there but can’t see…