“I am a back bencher. I came forward and sat in your class. I felt connected to you’, said the young man. I looked at him in surprise and staggered a bit as I tried to ingest that powerful statement.

He explained, ‘That is a compliment’. I blurted a quick thank you while still trying to make sense.

A casual acquaintance at a toastmasters club, a deep conversation and exchange of numbers a good, 7 years ago and still connecting with ease without a second meeting in all these years. If that is not connection, I don’t know what it is!

So, you are struggling with data, I could help, comes an offer from a newly made friend. Well, ‘it’s all about connections, you see’, said another sagely.

And I am thinking of these connections that I seem to be making and where they lead me to.

‘Now, I want to tell you a story, when can I come to meet you?’

‘Listen, you should write stuff, you know, let’s discuss that sometime’.

‘Think of the universe, think big, think’, said another almost reinforcing a faith that I was beginning to lose.

‘You know what happened a good 22 years ago…’ so on and so forth, a whirl pool of stories swirl around me, tantalizing, tempting, vying for attention, demanding it even, with alacrity such that I have neither experienced nor felt ever before in my life.

Sometimes the heart reaches out to knock on doors closed and windows shut, eyes turned away and ears that never heard, forgetting the beauty, the absolute thrill of how new connections make new stories and open new possibilities. And how it is so necessary to step out of small mindsets and jump across the fences that seem to wall so much of the world away from being experienced or even understood.

All I want, then, at times, is to put down everything, shut shop all the spread sheets and listen, listen with intent, with interest, wholly totally, completely and hope to reproduce a quarter of the magic, in the animated voices and emotions that are evidenced in them.

Ah! for the love of a good story, and for the dream of being a story teller, sure-footed, the conduit of wandering spirits, the whisperer of souls…..

What binds, what holds

souls in their individual journeys

to take a detour and stop and hold out a hand

and smile together and step out in directions anew

is mysterious and so shall it be…

PS: The word of the week is ‘Connection’, but what connect or disconnect did you experience recently?