Casual Interactions
Last Sunday I was able to go on a short hike with a friend from college. She is in the area to help her father and mother out while her dad is medically fragile. An avowed extrovert, she was going a little stir-crazy with being unable to leave her parent's property for two weeks. Since her quarantine was finally over, we planned a wonderful hike for Sunday. The weather did not disappoint!
I was very happy to see my friend, and the way it is with long-time friends, it was as if no time had passed since the last time we had visited: around Christmas, before COVID and quarantine, before shut-downs and life becoming a virtual experience. It was nice to just visit and share a meal at the top of the mountain. Perched on rocks, juggling sandwiches and containers of grapes and cherries, it was a sort of communion, sacred in its simple comfortable nature. It was a piece of ordinary in a non-ordinary year.
As we were hiking up the mountain, my friend spoke of the things she misses most: the casual conversations, the quick chats that can reorient your thinking from circular to productive; the passing comments between professional colleagues going between classes and meetings (she works for a university); the ease of going out to a coffee shop or even a library to meet with friends. She commented that she has even befriended her partner's cat out of shear loneliness! Knowing my friend as I do, I know what an admission this is!
We build our lives around casual interactions. When I worked at a doctor's office, I stopped in a coffee shop on my way to work. Originally it was only Fridays, as a reward for getting through the week, but as time went on I stopped in more and more frequently. Not so much for the coffee, but for the people who worked there. Those quick casual moments where we could either express frustration or joy together in momentary safety were more of a pick-me-up than the coffee. The coffee became in many ways the price I paid for the emotional connection. When I left that job, and I knew my next job would not bring me near that coffee shop on a regular basis anymore, I had to stop in and let them know. Even though I had seen employees of the coffee shop come and go, I had to say goodbye to the team that was there at the time. Several months later I returned to the shop with some friends to spend time together. Some of the employees were still the same. They remembered me and we chatted for a bit, but I had changed the nature of the interaction by staying in the shop to visit with friends. I lost that casual connection with my fellow workers. The next time I returned, no one familiar was behind the bar; the interactions I had cherished so much relegated to memory.
What happened when the lives we know, those casual interactions that seem tiny but are actually vital, vanish? At first we many not notice the difference, life goes on. Typically different encounters fill the gap left behind. The collective trauma we are experiencing comes from the fact that nearly all of these little interactions were severed at once, and we are now coming to realize that those connections were the warp and weft of life, interlocking the significant moments.
My prayer is that going forward we will all be intentional about cultivating even the casual relationships. I know that when I can contradance again, I will make an effort to intentionally learn names, instead of learning of the names of my fellow dancers. At pastor conferences I will make a vow to approach nearly full tables to sit at instead of nearly empty ones. I look forward to choirs and dinners with friends, to Shakespeare in the Park, to High School play productions. All these in time, though, so in the mean time my prayer is for life, for safety, for health of loved ones, for inspired medical research. My prayer is for love.
I love you all
Stay Safe and Healthy
Wash Your Hands
Peace be with you
~Rev. Andrea Joy Holroyd
