Recommended Soundtrack: The Distance by Cake, Stuck Here Again by L7, Walk by The Foo Fighters
I’ve been thinking a lot about social media & connection during the past month. The link between me, the writer, and you, the reader, and how these delicate tendrils of connection join us in this moment. It’s wondrous and powerful stuff in these times of social distance.
The song by Cake, about going the distance, sums up the past 11 months for me. There has been a serious lack of speed and connection.
I have written a lot about walking since August. It’s been a gift even as my partner, our dog, and I shuffle through the finite sets of loops from our house, feeling stuck here again.
Somewhere along the way it became a bit of a running joke that I’d try to take a selfie with my sweetheart and the dog. It started as a photojournal of the days so I could have a sense of time passing. It’s become so much more:
“After reading about your step goals I started a 30 minute a day goal…”
“I love seeing your walk pictures, it reminds me to go out…”
“Thank you for the laugh and the nudge that it’s not too cold out…”
The messages have been coming pretty regularly that a silly photo of us on a walk is a gentle reminder to my friends that:
-we all need movement
– there can be joy on the hardest days
– every step can connect us to our goals
It’s that bit of connection as we learn to walk in the winter again, finding our footing and each other over social media.
It’s not a hug or a shared meal but it is a subsistence trickle of connection based on a snapshot of a moment. I think part of it is the everyday, not-epic-at-all nature of the photo. When taken in context of a couple hundred days it is impactful.
I’m still here, you’re still there. Our time in this moment is fleeting. What will you do next to sustain your sense of connection?
I’ll probably call my mom or my sister. I’ll then go for a walk and post a picture about it.
FIT IS A FEMINIST ISSUE 