A lot has changed for me. I want to get into some specifics in other posts. For this one, I want to stay broad and talk through some big emotions. A year and six months in I still resonate strongly with the post I wrote earlier expressing all my worries about meeting new people. I have been struggling at this, as I expected. And missing my old community. For me there’s no replacement to meeting people through shared activity. It seemed that climbers were often my specific brand of nerdy outdoor athletes. People who love systems and a little bit of suffering. I am looking for them in places I have access to. If you have suggestions for activities to try, let me know. In the mean time I feel like Ben is taking on a disproportionate amount of the work of keeping me moving outside and rambling late-night conversations.

In an attempt to break out of routine I recently went to a workshop on “The Art of Connection” . It involved some activities that certainly challenged me, like a minute and a half of silently holding eye contact with a stranger. I’ve been trying to be brave emotionally and inter-personally lately. And I realize how stunted these muscles can get when traveling in my familiar circles each day. I have been avoiding strangers, in general. This is because of how exhausting it is to manage most people’s reactions to a person in a wheelchair. I have to deal with the look of pity, or with blatant staring, or with blatant pretending not to stare. It takes a lot to get somebody to finally see me, not just a chair with wheels. So this workshop took on a strong emotional charge. I started speaking to the room about my experience. And the facilitator did something that felt amazing. She asked, instead of assuming. She first talked about this approach in a more general way. That this is her way of interacting with all people. And then she demonstrated it by asking me. Asking how I like to be hugged. Asking where I would like to sit, how I would like to move through a room, etc etc. And the rest of the group took her lead. I finally got to explain how to best hug me while I’m sitting in a wheelchair. I got to explain how I feel about people violating my personal space, about doors, about chairs, about being carried. And this is how to make a person feel seen. It made me realize how much I hate all the assumptions about me. That this is part of the huge burden I feel with strangers. And that we can cultivate and encourage the kind of attitude that makes it all better. It was so easy to replace the group’s nervous hesitation with open curiosity. Once they saw it was “polite” to ask questions and that I was happy to answer, they had so many… and the distance between us vanished. That’s the art of connection. To encourage empathy by letting go of assumptions. We can so easily replace fear of the unknown with curiosity, learning and connection. Too bad it seems people need to be given permission to ask. And to assume is the default culturally accepted practice.

The experience left me puzzling as to how I can encourage more of this in my everyday life. And (at least for me) to be uncomfortable is an addictive feeling. I am now looking for my next inter-personal challenge.