Connections. 
I have been thinking lately about how we make them, how we lose them, and what they mean to us. Do we intentionally stop trying to make them -- or do they just wither away without much intentionality at all? What did they mean to us when we had them? How were they crafted, forged, proved, tested, and trusted? And how do we do that today?
My mother used to talk to her mother every day on the telephone. When we had a party line, she had to wait until it was free before she could make a call. If she had been nosey, she could listen quite easily to the conversation that was going on while she was waiting, but I know she did not do that. Her life was complicated enough.
She didn't really like talking to her mother, and I knew that from the time I understood what the telephone could do. But still, they talked. They connected. The talk was always difficult, edgy, shaded with blame, recriminations and questions that could not be answered by either one -- but the connection seemed to be the point.
When I left home at 19 I continued the practice of talking to my mother, my grandmothers, and even my future mother-in-law (who I did not like much, but she would be family, for a shorter time than I thought, but that's what I thought you did). You maintained the connection, whether it made you unhappy, uncomfortable, mad, sad, or confused. That's what families did.
Somewhere along the way I realized that I did not have to make those calls, or even receive them. I could let the phone ring, and they could try again.
Today there is not much space to wiggle out of those uncomfortable connections, you know who called you, you have caller i.d., and they can leave you a message that can be much too long and much too packed with guilt or blame, shame or anger. And if they don't reach you on your home phone, they can try again on your mobile, or they can see if you are online by checking facebook or your e-mail account. No place to hide.
And this can be a blessing and a curse. Why is so much of life like that? I don't know who to ask. But there it is. You can be instantly connected, or not, to someone you are desperate to talk to. Or you can be instantly denied that connection and wonder why.
People do have a right to choose the time and place. And I think back in the day of the old telephone connections, or even when the written communication was the only way to connect, it was easier to respond in a rational and thoughtful way. You could stop before you said something you didn't really mean to say, but seemed clever or delivered an equal jolt, when actually, if you had time to think about it, would not really communicate what you were trying to say. How you were trying to connect, or respond to an attempt to make a connection was a bigger part of the equation. Today you can hit "reply all" without meaning to, and ruin everything.
Even before the web, family news could spread faster than what we could access via the newspaper, radio, or tv -- we had the telephone and the backyard fence. Which is why we are now so attracted to the internet -- that global web of connection, that backyard fence -- we can get information that is faster -- more salacious -- more alarming. Because even when it was just family news, it was so compelling, the attraction of a global web that catches people out makes us such easy targets. The connection we long for isn't actually there, but some of us still keep surfing on the slush of guilt, blame, shame and anger that fueled our old connections. We forget that in the family, even with the stuff that clogged the pipes, we still were actually connected to one another, for good or ill. Family was mostly there if you really needed them, whether they approved of you or not, they generally showed up.
Today many of us, for lots of reasons, don't have the daily family connections even though we have the internet and cell phones and the news crawl. We are too busy for the daily phone calls, and we do have many ways to dodge the family static. But we do still long for connection, you know it, I know it, and so we sit down at our computers or in front of our televisions or ipads or iphones to connect. Do we actually complete the "call" for that interaction?
When I try to access a connection to the wider world of the internet I mostly feel abused, slapped with information, or buried with shouting. Large voices aren't really those that are actually heard. I read somewhere that when you shout at someone, they shut down, can't access the information you are trying to give them. Defense sprouts up and shuts out the assault of too many words. Or nobody responds to messages I send. Another rebuke, although not really.
I long for a different way to get the information I need, and the connections I want to make. And I hope that I don't have to retreat from all the shouting from the media, from the pundits, from the angry people who are not really angry, but just scared; because sometimes they really do have information I need. In some small space, some quiet corner, I hope to take it in and make some sense of all the information out there. Just for me. Not for publication, just for me.
But honestly? Mostly, I long to find that there are places where people can connect with one another without having to defend a position, attack on principle, or shut down. That's a difficult thing in today's complicated, information-filled world.
