Cozy Connections

I send a text message to a group of friends this week with a photo of my Wednesday latte. Katie writes right back saying that being loved from places all over the world “makes the planet feel cozy.” That made me feel warm and loved, and cozy.

Technology does make the planet feel cozy. Except when it makes it sad and scary. Like the news on TV and radio yesterday of fighting over Gaza (again). And a school bus accident in Egypt that killed dozens of kindergarten children. But there’s a baby elephant about to be born in Portland after a two year pregnancy, and a nearby highway repaving project has been delayed for fear the vibrations might disturb the sensitive mama. The news story mentions the 1962 birth at the Portland zoo of Packy. I remember that! Childhood suddenly seems less distant.

Also this weekend:

• “The leaders of China and long-time rival Taiwan had rare direct political contact after Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou sent congratulatory messages to China's new and outgoing Communist Party leaders, Xi Jinping and Hu Jintao. 'Looking towards the future…’” 

• “60 per cent of the largest US cities now have smoke-free laws.” 

• “Everyday life [in Iraq] is showing signs of becoming more stable, and the government says it can now look again to funding the arts.” 

• “A positive cycle of enterprise financing and increasing citizen empowerment is slowly improving Africa's economic prospects and reducing poverty.”
• “Moscow's new Jewish museum is Europe's largest and Russia's first major attempt to tell the story of its Jewish community.”
• “A report, by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), found 61 per cent of Chinese consumers would pay more for a product made in the United States.”

You can actually Google “good news from around the world.” Somehow the stories don't make it onto the mainstream newsfeed, but the internet can make the world feel cozy, and not like such a bad planet.

I met a family member by marriage at a family reunion a couple years back who lives in Hungary, and is Hungarian. I see her on FaceBook. I read about the lives of cousins on FaceBook, too, who would just be names on the family tree. While we may not agree politically or religiously, I love virtually knowing them and their children, and celebrate difference and blood ties. I am not an island. I chat online in real time across time zones with friends and family in North Carolina, Illinois, Virginia, and Colorado, and in Seattle. I recently connected on chat, unexpectedly (it's always unexpected), with my childhood friend and neighbor from 45 years ago. I have friends who play scrabble-type word games with friends online. I might join them, except I suck at word games. Say what you will, the internet can connect people who otherwise would not be connecting.

I am continuing, for now, to create the newsletter for my previous employer, remotely. I am grateful to live in the age of technology. Because I don’t have the computer program I need on my Mac, however, I use the neighbor’s computer. No one ever brought me tea and cookies while I did it on-site. It made me feel all warm inside.

My sister and her beautiful shop “HUBBUB” celebrate their seventh anniversary this week. I am so proud of her. One of our friends buys a scarf I made a couple of years ago. I sat on my yellow sofa on a chilly winter evening, my legs covered with the shawl my other sister knit for me, a cat on my lap and a fire in the fireplace and candles on the mantle; and I knit that multi-colored scarf. I had no idea back then that two years later I would live on the other side of the country and sell the scarf to a new friend. I made several other scarves that winter, scarves that have been gifted or sold by me in North Carolina, or by my sister in Washington. I don’t know if they were kept by the buyer or given away as gifts. But I knit my story into those scarves. Across the continent, and who knows where else, people wrap my story around them. They aren't aware of it, but we are cozily connected.

I wake up one morning this week to a photograph of my five-month-old grandson on my phone. His mama wrote, on his behalf, “Good morning, Gigi! Love you!” Makes my day cozy, and every time I open my phone I smile and virtually squeeze his adorable little plumpness.

As I write this Saturday evening, it is raining on the roof, and on the garden, at my new home. My sister’s afghan is over my legs, and my mother is in the chair next to me. I am living with another human for the first time in almost nine years.

Friend Laura, three time zones away and up late, just popped up on FaceBook chat for a couple of minutes. I now know she is exhausted from a leak under her house, precipitating digging a new drain. I got to wish her a good sleep. Soon I will go downstairs to my cat and my cozy chair that my dear friend Dori gave me when she moved away from physical proximity. I am glad she is still close by via the internet, and her chair. It is cozy in the garden.