God created man so he could tell a story
Eli WeiselI have the good fortune to meet many people from all walks of life. Almost everyday, I meet someone new to me, usually through what I do for a living. I have no idea how many people I have had the pleasure to share small bursts of time together. Never the quantity......... always the quality. Needless to say, I have heard stories and have learned to help peel the layers off the surfaces in order to truly glean a deeper sense of the person behind the stories they choose to share. Their stories flow into my own. Our connections, even if briefly, have added the lustre to my own narrative. I carry storythreads of their tapestry as they do some of mine. From the painfully poignant to the joyfully celebratory........our stories intertwine and fold into our own human essence.
There are some people I've met who for one reason or another, leave a more profound impact on me. I'm sure this happens to all of us, and chances are someone comes to mind right away. There is no recipe for figuring this out, and believe me I've tried. Timing and a commonality are factors, but I often don't know who it will be or when it will happen. It always leaves me pleasantly surprised when it happens -- when I am confronted with a feeling that the connection goes far beyond the "regular" kind of meeting of the mind and spirit.
Last spring, I met a young girl who lives in public housing. Before I had been introduced to her, I observed her as she entered the community centre that was filled with a slew of children of all ages and their moms. There was an evident magnetism surrounding her. Her peers moved towards her, as she very comfortably strolled over to a mother who was surrounded by her little ones and was holding her newest 6 month old. The young girl confidently took the baby into her arms, gave him a loving hug while she continued interacting with the ones around her. Strong, capable, and seemingly self assured, this 12 year old had me wanting to meet her too......wanting to know her story. I wanted to know her dreams and what made her tick so brightly.
Since then, I have had the chance to watch her in a few different settings as well as sit with her around a campfire this summer at a local campsite park. I saw her again interacting with her peers while waiting to jump on a ride at the local exhibition. Even though there were hundreds of others milling around her, some with familiar faces, this little one stood out. It was like she had a light glowing from her as a means of highlighting her presence.
Is that it? Is that what attracts us to the others who seem to make more impact on us....that there is some kind of energy that pulls us in? We read often about the Laws of Attraction.......its the underlying premise of that book "The Secret...." but can you really exude this in a concious way or does it have to within you? Is it an attraction of the internality of another human being or is it merely physical attraction manifested by an external beauty?
Attraction stupifies. It comes in all shapes, sizes, ages, circumstances. It is more than what meets the eye because it somehow pierces the surfaces and triggers our curiosity, shakes our desire to know their stories and to share some of our own. Attraction awakens something deeply stirring in our own selves....compassion mixed with thin air. For me, when it happens, I feel more humanly alive, like i have found a new piece to my own tapestry that I may not have even known I was lacking. I want to find out who this person is and why they are triggering the mysterious compassion in me. I want to know their story and be a part of it. I want them to be a part of mine.
Frederick Buechner, whom I have quote before in my posts writes about this......“Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.”
Their are some who enter your life for a short wink but leave an indelible mark. When you think about how many people we pass by......the ones on the street, on the tube, at the market....at community meetings, in line at the coffee shop.....it's amazing to me how the chemistry of two people can pull them into a conversation.
Life is a lonely existence if we weren't curious to seek out the people whom we find an attraction to. On the other hand, we need to be with others whom we feel the opposite with and figure that out too. We would never learn new things about ourselves if blindly walked around not recognizing that it is in others we see our own reflections. Some are beautiful reflections,while other times we see our ugly vulnerabilities too difficult to swallow. Attraction and repulsion to others reflect our own stories as we reflect theirs........in truthful abundance.
Compassion and curiosity allow us to look into a mirror.....one that reflects not only our flesh, but has the capacity to reveal some of your hidden stories. Are you ready to take it in?
10 comments:
Mmmm...lots to ponder. thank-you.
Yes, I am so ready!
The attraction of which you speak is a an attraction to a vibration that each of us emmit. We pick up on these vibrations which cause us to be attracted or to be repulsed by another. Attraction is awareness in many ways. Great thoughts.
I sometimes think I have near figured out this problem, but then it strikes me that many of the people who touch me are ones that I have never seen. I've never observed their manner or how they interact with others - most I've never even heard speak. So perhaps it is something subconscious, something pre-destined. Perhaps there are people we are 'supposed' to meet - I know for certain that a lot of my beliefs today came about through hearing of others...
Perhaps I'm just going round in circles.
christy...it felt that way writing it and now that i look at the piece, it's choppy....my own pondering got in the way I think. I kept writing and editing...it had been sitting in draft form for a while.
Mark...Interesting how the vibrations can be very clear and strong even through communicating online eh? Blog feromes!
I have thought a lot about this attraction business when it comes to the people I work with too. Their own "vibrations" (thank you for the word) emit messages and seem to often attract people who aren't safe to be with or who don't support them.
Niki....oh, I am a firm believer in predestined connections. They are the most powerful and I believe they are rare. I have a friend whom I have never met (yet) whom I had such a strong resonating feeling about. I took the risk to contact him through email initially to see if I was right in how I was interpreting the "vibrations" and lo and behold I was right. I'm grateful that I had the balls to do it. :)
I don't think you're going around in circles....I think you're hitting the nail on the head.
If you and I had never read each others comments that one day on Paul's blog we would never have connected.....and as soon as I read your comment that day, I was COMPELLED to write my own...
I think we can keep our heads down and not pay attention to the vibrations that Mark writes about and never experience the pre-destined synchronicities or we can keep our heads up, our eyes and ears open and take the risks to put our hands out and touch another when we get that feeling.
I can remember my dear friend Betty saying to me years ago that she wished I had a thicker skin, because I empathized so much with other people it made it hard on me...! But, at the same time, she said she was grateful that this is how I was....!
Compassion is what really makes us truly connect to each other as human beings. It is one of the components that seems to be missing in the passing of these Propostions like Prop 8 here in California. People feel justified in their voting to BAN Gay Marriage because.."the Bible says it is wring"...LOVE, cannot be wrong. So, where is their compassion? Just put yourself in the place of Gay People....As we know, there was a time when Black People could not marry at all, and then, when White & Black people could not marry--By Law! Substitute the word Jew, or Protestant, or OR just about anything---Thin people, Fat People....Putting yourself in the other persons shoes....THAT is the true beginning of compassion.
And I understand this "attraction" that you speak of...it happens all the time, where you feel something very special from another person and you want that and them in your life. I'm not sure one can put into words what that is, because it is different for each person, but you sure know when it is there, for you, don't you?!
Great Post, Dana.
thank you for visiting with me and for your very kind words regarding my father. i do love him so much.
it would seem that you commenting and me following you over here was meant to be. a much needed message was received.
i love it when we don't ask for something, but wonder quietly to ourselves. and then ever so gently, messages unfold.
Yeh I think attraction has something to do with energy. Energy coming on the same frequency.
Certainly not only physical attraction. I was last week enormously attracted to a men who was far from pretty but he was somehow amazing. We also strangly completely connected and acted as if we knew each other.
Anyway I am very attracted to blogging again and back in town
Naomi.....when someone gets under my skin...somehow seeps into and through my pores, i find it very difficult to let go of the feeling Buechner described. Though i have learned (the hard way) to protect myself from it happening too often because it's not helpful or healthy as a counsellor. You'd take home big bags of burdens that aren't yours and you'd get weighed down too quickly. Still......there are some.....and when it happens, it makes me sit up and really wonder whats going on. I've had a few conversations just today with colleagues and a client on how others reflect our own stuff back in a way that sometimes its the first time we can see it. Strange how that happens....I write a piece like this and then POOF, it somehow comes up in meetings, in conversations. It's very strange. :)
Mandela, in the video I posted yesterday spoke of the fact that it is love which makes humans embrace humanity. true, true, true.
mic woman....hello! I found you through Aussie Gypsy. :) Love your bloggie name. It made me smile and want to know what you were writing about. I'm a mixture.....Scot, Irish, British....but I'd say I'm most Scottish....and mouthy too. Love Irish lore, music, literature and myth.....must be the Darby in me! Look forward to reading more of your blogposts and getting to know you. Welcome!
Marja! Great news. I'm glad you're blogging again....Will be by soon. Glad you caught the bug again.
I have been told on a number of occasions that I have a "way about me" that draws people to me. Obviously I can neither agree nor refute this as I don't see or sense what others do when it comes to myself but it's odd how often it gets said.
In a more general way I suppose it's like when a producer sees literally hundreds of people for an audition for a part. No-one seems just right and then out of the blue they see someone on the street who seems perfect. Ask them why that is so and they can't put their finger on it. Sometimes it's described as star quality or the "it" factor but whatever it is it is not describable in words.
It's just one of those cosmic mystical wonderful things in life that just "are". Don't you just love it?
gypsy....under your new moniker. I have to get your link up again!
Great analogy. I like that.
I get the same thing from people and in fact my family laughs about it. Just the other day, we were on our way to a friend's house for dinner and stopped at the local convenience store. As i approached the counter, the cashier guy (whom I didn't know) asked me how i was...I replied "fine...how are you?" And he replies...."Are you just asking to be polite or do you really want to know?" I mean WHO gets asked that at a frigging convenience store?? So, I said...." I really want to know......" 10 minutes later, I emerge from the store having heard this guys full life story....whacked out ex-wife, crazy boyfriend of ex-wife, lots of kids he's worried about....a case worker involved. He had no idea where I worked and that the case worker was a colleague. I told him I would look into it when I got to work on Monday. This stuff happens all the time.
My Mom is used to it as well.....even when I lived at home in high school, i'd leave for a quick errand and come home an hour later with a story.
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