I believe in the beauty of connections. I believe in the webs we create through the quest to define ourselves with the physical world. The associations people make with themselves and everything they feel and know shoot through the sky and overlap, thinly clothes-lined through the stratosphere in infinite numbers. They separate the earth from the sun and paint the ground on which we somersault and shuffle with sepia-colored shadows. They are beautiful, and they give me the courage to fearlessly join the club that is the rest of the world.
Everyone attempts to find themselves in the densely webbed forest of everything and all—the universe with its every particle and being can be an ironically lonely place. Everyone indentifies with simple ideas, though. I use this theory to shake hands with humanity around me. I tend to use my senses rather than conversation. I don’t frame anyone’s appearance or mannerisms, but I use a braid of hair and a predisposition to compose operas in the shower as special tools—as partial solutions to the complex equations that make people who they are.
Through my observance of these fascinating associations, I’ve begun to conquer my debilitating shyness. As I watch the universe from a park bench, the world no longer sends my heart into hyper drive; with the wide-eyed observance method I’ve attempted to instill in myself, I can get to know the world around me at my own pace. I see myself as equal to everyone squeezing themselves through the congested halls of my high school. We’re all the same—and yet we’re not for all the right reasons. I am beginning to realize this, and to embrace my own ability to shine in my unique light without fear of judgment or failure.
The connections I have made through my life so far are, among other things, lassoed around paint tubes, braceleted on the branches of the impossibly high poplars in my dad’s backyard, and gently leashed over the necks of beluga whales. My sister has chosen sunflowers and the French language to embrace; my mother relies on her needles and thread, and loves making Halloween costumes and quilts. These seemingly unimportant aspects of our beings give us our own variables and brilliantly complicate the equations deeply rooted within our souls. Through the quiet observance of everyone’s connections, I identify, I embrace what I believe to be connected to my own heart, and thus I am able to shake hands with the world in few words as the world meets me.