Connect some dots

Most of us remember connect-the-dot puzzles, moving a pencil around a piece of partially printed newsprint from numbered dot to numbered dot until a composition is revealed. I guess this is a way of teaching kids how to count because as we all know, in real life dots can be connected any which way and the connection does not always reveal anything sensical.

My friend Lisa visited us in Central Oregon recently and after painting a mural so pretty it stuns me daily, running with me on the backyard trails, and making plans for our summer adventure, her return home was interrupted by a crazy accident. While the story is her’s to tell, as I moved through the day with her I observed far more coincidences than the average tale. Are there more potentially connectable dots as we spend more years on the earth? Are there dots everywhere and only those paying attention can find a way to connect them?

I think that some people, curious people, move through the world weaving connections, making friends out of strangers, and trying to soften the hearts of highway patrolmen. The rest of us are looking at screens, spreadsheets, lists, or at nothing in particular. Those curious folks are drawing the lines while others are points that become part of the composition.

I still can’t shake the feeling that Central Oregon has its own force field of weirdness which may have influenced the events around Lisa’s accident, but I’ve heard stories that things have been weird all over. I’m hoping we are at the end of a very challenging six months. All of us.

Each birthday, new year, new month, new day, offers an opportunity for a fresh start, and really if you are a person who needs a deadline to begin something, there is perhaps no better day than the winter solstice. The sun is 91,439 million miles away. We have reached the longest, darkest day of the year. Today we lose the final 2 seconds of daylight before we get one back tomorrow.

Pull your fingers out of your pants, as they say, and start something fresh. I might recommend asking questions without anticipating answers, or being playful instead of right, or spending time outside listening, looking, smelling. Whatever you do, do not try. Just do the thing and observe the result. Repeat. I think this might be the ticket to participating in your own story, drawing your own lines, making your own composition. Now that we are grown ups, after all, we don’t have to follow the numbers.