Webs & skeins: what connects friends

As those of you who read my last post know, I recently experienced a profound sense of connection with a far-distant friend through a shared sense of loss, yet we have not even been in the same part of the country for over twenty years.  That got me thinking and wondering about friendship and why it is that we can feel so intensely connected to someone we haven't seen in years, and yet we might never get beyond the surface of someone we see almost daily.  

After mulling it over, and looking at my long-distance friendships, I began to see certain similarities, almost none of which explained the longevity of these particular relationships.  Many of my friends are parents, but that doesn't explain it, or at least not by itself.  Some are relatively new at the game, while others, like me, have raised at least one child to adulthood.  It's not religion, at least not in the organized, denominational sense of the word.  My circle embraces Christians of all stripes, agnostics and pagans, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs, Jews and Muslims.  There might even be an atheist or two thrown in for good measure.  Certainly there are shared values, but that only scratches the surface.  I've met many people who shared my values, but precious few of them have become the kind of enduring friends with whom there is a shortcut to connection.  

It's not definitely not education, since I never managed to complete university, and my friends run the gamut from high school dropouts to PhD candidates, and it's not intelligence, or at least not in isolation.  While most of my friends are intelligent, I've met many allegedly bright people with whom I could find no common ground.  And it's not technology in and of itself, although most of us use those tools to aid in building and maintaining our connections.  

What it seems to be is a sense of humour and a way of looking at the world as a series of connections, a series of interconnected stories that need to be told and retold to be remembered, which creates a kinship that has nothing to do with the DNA of our bodies and everything to do with the DNA of a really good story.  Perhaps that is why we all seem to have some sort of creative outlet, whether literary, visual, or musical.  Not that we all make our living through our endeavours, although some of us are fortunate enough to do so.  I am not one of them, although working the front line in the hospitality industry certainly requires the ability to think outside the box. 

I think what I love about all these friends of mine, is that they think.  Deeply, lovingly, sarcastically, with humour and childlike openness, about themselves, the world around them, and their place in that world. 

Whatever it is, it serves to connect me to a lit-loving med student in Manila, a social media scholar in Charlottetown, an historical interpreter, several musicians, and a Toronto-based aficionado of the absurd, among others.  And maybe what it is doesn't matter as much as the fact that it exists. 

Names and reasons: or why I am here

"Why start a blog now?"  someone asked me the other day.  "The personal blog is dead, or at least dying."  It's a good question, one to which I'm not sure I know the answer entirely, but which also finds its reflection in a friend, who is a student of, and lecturer on, technology and media, putting an end to her personal blog this past week. 

I think it has to do with needing an outlet, one which may or may not have an audience, but which allows me to put my thoughts and ideas out where someone might see them.  And even those posts which I don't immediately publish, because they need polishing or contain content that just would never tie in with anything I would ever want to be known about me, allow me the opportunity to learn more about myself, my surroundings, and my voice as a writer.  On some level, the urge to blog now, as opposed to  three or five years ago, is probably also related to the urge that led me, in my late teens and early twenties, to essay my hand at writing sonnets.  I live in the times in which I live because I must, because some twist of fate placed me here, but I am not completely of these times.  Some of it may come from being a chronological member of generation X, but one whose parents, unlike those of many of my peers, were not baby-boomers, and their parents were all born during the Victorian era.  As a result, I sometimes feel as though I have a toehold in three different centuries. 

The blog, therefore, is an attempt to bridge my nineteenth-century compulsion to write, my mid-twentieth-century yearning for structure and change, and twenty-first century technology. 

As far as the title of my blog, it was something that occurred to me only at the instant of having to input it.  I have always had the urge to travel (the proverbial "itchy foot"), but the circumstances of my life and finances have always conspired to limit my ability to do so.  Combined with my having been a stay-at-home mother for the past decade, the lack of travel contributed to a raging case of cabin fever.  Hence the name. 

Despite the name, however, this i.s not strictly speaking a travel blog, although I have since moved to one of those places I always wanted to explore, and I have started work outside the home.  I'm not one hundred-percent certain of what direction I will take this, but I can hazard a guess that it is at least as much about internal journeys and limitations as it will be about the literal. 

I do find it odd, or perhaps serendipitous, that, while I have always wanted to travel but never been able to do so to the degree which I would prefer, that I have found a career in the hospitality industry.  I actually fell into it when I was still young. 

I was a student looking for a summer job, and I spotted a hiring ad in the campus newspaper (don't laugh, this was 1990) for a hotel that I had seen in a calendar picture and had always thought looked like a really interesting place.  Since I did not want to go home and work in either of the family businesses, I typed up my resume and cover letter, and sent off my application.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, exactly, but on the basis of some previous cashier experience, I was hired to work at the front desk.  My mother dropped me off at the beginning of June, and after a week, I was hooked.  At that time, I thought hospitality would be a good way to earn my way through university, but I had no intentions of spending my life working in business. 

Fast-forward two decades and five babies, and I found myself looking for opportunities outside of the home.  After a fruitless attempt to find employment in the regular business world, I decided to return my focus to the industry in which I had found the most professional happiness.  After a year spent at school gaining credentials to back up my experience, I launched myself back into the world of gainful employment.  Three weeks after starting my new position, I can honestly say that I have come home.  This is the work where my heart is, and I have the opportunity to travel vicariously through my conversations with guests. 

I may not have left the cabin yet, but the windows are open and it feels like Spring.  And that's a damn good feeling.