On Friday, 11/11/2016, a stranger and I stood on a street corner and sobbed together.
I was already crying when she saw me. I’m a crier. It’s not my favorite personality trait, wishing, as I do, that I were the sort of person who could deliver poignant, perfectly-timed declarations with cool aplomb, but no, your girl be weepin’. And while I may not celebrate the fact that tears make up 25% of the water that makes up 63% of my human body, I’ve learned to accept it, because of self-love. At any rate, these particular tears caused this woman to stop in her tracks, ask a two-word question to which she already knew the answer, (“The election?”) spontaneously embrace me, and set about getting on with her festival of waterworks.
We just stood there, hugging and boohooing until the streetlight changed.
I guess that the nice stranger lady is also a crier, but maybe she isn’t. Maybe seeing me in distress triggered her salinated response, like yawning, but with grief. Maybe she just needed a hug too and took advantage of a serendipitous moment. Or maybe what happened, happened because that lady and I simply had to claim each other, witness each other’s pain, and do whatever we could to help heal it.
I share this story with you not as a covert request for snuggles, but to highlight a trend I’ve observed in the majority of my recent clients – invitations to re-evaluate one’s identity and one’s role in our social collective. Essentially, we figure out how we can show up for each other in mundane and major ways. As we enter a newly unsettling moment in global history, we’re being prompted to revisit questions about who we are, what we value, how we can best be of service to the world, and to whom we truly belong.
For better or worse, that lady and I belong to each other now. And if we could recognize each other in that moment of public grief then we can all cultivate a practice of seeing ourselves and everyone else from that same foundation of unity, regardless of circumstance. And if we grow excellent at the practice, perhaps we won’t have to bring ourselves to such massively precipitous places to recognize our interdependence.
So: I extend the invitation to you. Ask yourself the questions listed above. Observe your answers without judgment. Who’s in your crew?
