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Every spring, as we start to come out of hibernation and return to outdoor activity, I am always surprised by the joy I feel as I casually encounter neighbors and strangers moving through my day-to-day routine. They may be walking their dogs, taking a stroll, or mowing their lawns, but there is always this gentle invitation to stop for a moment and exchange a few words.
These brief interactions are known as micro connections: the laughter shared with the person checking out your groceries, the gentle exchange when you ask for assistance at the hardware store, the chat with the gardener as you pass their house on your walk. These interactions are supremely valuable to our well-being though their importance is often discarded in favor of relationships with weightier and more decisive labels like “partner”, “child”, “parent”, or “friend”. While we may overlook the value of these small interactions, they can be quite pivotal in lightening our mood and reminding us that people are generally helpful and kind. My daughter shared a recent interaction when she had a delivery of a larger piece of furniture that was too difficult to move from the mailroom to her apartment several buildings away. Instead, she asked if she might unbox it in the mailroom and transport the individual pieces which were small enough for her to manage alone. She went on to recount how every person who entered the mail room as she went about this task asked about her endeavors and offered her some assistance. One kind couple carried her trash out to the dumpster, another took her recycling, and one man helped by taking the pieces to her apartment in a single trip with his truck. Some smiled or offered words of encouragement. These were small interactions that made my daughter’s large task more manageable without truly inconveniencing any one person who helped. Each small action creates a feedback loop that allows everyone to leave the interaction feeling more positive and connected. As the world becomes more solitary in the wake of the pandemic, we have lost many of these opportunities for social interactions. We may no longer have someone who checks out our groceries or a teller who deposits our checks. And we all have stories of the impersonal automated customer care calls that make human interaction (and assistance) nearly impossible. Herein lies the task… the invitation. As you go about your busy day, slow down a bit, take out your ear buds if you see a neighbor and greet them on your walk, offer a wave of gratitude to the driver that let you cut in in front of them, ask your mail carrier how their day is going, tell a stranger something you appreciate about them. You’ll be doing you both a mighty favor. “May you be rocked, as deeply as necessary and as gently as possible” ~Anonymous Louisa
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I’m not sure if you are feeling the same pull or opposition that I have been feeling over the last few weeks. There is a strange sense of expectation that I can’t quite identify. It might simply be the constantly shifting weather pulling us back and forth between winter and spring. It might be the continued roller coaster ride of the relentless news cycle and state of global affairs.
I find myself aware of a peculiar tension: a need to hold some sort of space for all the dying beliefs and structures in a country that is sometimes hard to recognize, along with something that feels suspiciously like hope. This moment feels important and pivotal as rules, predictability, and global stability are deconstructed. As it feels like we are moving backward rather than forward in efforts toward unity and inclusivity. As personal profit and self-promotion become the focus of our talents and endeavors. It feels almost like holding vigil. Like sitting by the bedside of a hospice patient, knowing that the time for effective treatment has passed and palliative measures are all that remain. Staying present with compassion and faith. At the same time, I sense something new brewing, in the earliest stages of gestation. That time in the beginning of new life when you might not even share the news with anyone because it feels too fragile, and to breathe it aloud might somehow disrupt the process of creation. There is both an ending and a beginning. So it has ever been. I share my experience because I have noticed some newfound energy and optimism for the state of things. History has always been a teeter-toter, a balancing act, moving to and fro along that infamous moral arc. Yes, the values and expectations we have lived by are being slowly dissolved into… well, something else. But this is impermanence in action. It was never going to remain the same. We must sit by the bedside of the fading world, offering it words of gratitude and comfort. And we must also prepare ourselves to midwife a new world into existence. She will be fragile and weak and will need our protection as she takes her first, tremulous steps. If we falls too deeply into mourning, if we become too angry over what has been lost, if hold on too tightly to what we wanted the world to be, we will not have the strength, the stamina, or the focus to champion the new life that is to come. “May you be rocked, as deeply as necessary and as gently as possible” ~Anonymous Louisa |
AuthorLouisa has always enjoyed writing and is thrilled that she now has a way to share her musings with a larger community of like-minded seekers. Her writing is often an extension and exploration of the struggles she faces in integrating her own spirituality, scholarly study, life experience, and nuggets of brilliance from her teachers in the hopes that it might alchemically transform itself into something approximating wisdom. Archives
February 2026
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