Synchronized and Calibrated

Light weight jackets have finally come out to play in our house. Ben and I have been able to toss open the windows and allow a cool, fall breeze refresh our home. At night, when the temperature dips into the 50s or even 40s, we grab our jackets before heading out to campfires, star gazing, planting bulbs, or Red Lobster with Pat. It was when we returned home last night that in my periphery I noticed that Ben and I doffed our jackets with almost precise synchronicity: first the right sleeve then the left. I realize that this coordinated movement in synchronized time is no award winning choreography performed by the Joffrey Ballet but this simple mirror image of myself in another got me thinking about relationship synchronicity and connection.

When Ben and I were dating long distance, we craved the normal everyday things you do in the presence of each other. Watching television, eating, taking a walk, etc. Phone conversations could not provide the normal side by side activities. One evening we decided we would both tackle cleaning our rooms together. We set up our webcams so that they could view the width of the room and we began our tasks. Occasionally I would look over to the screen of Ben and he would be vacuuming the same time as I was (only 400 miles away!). Or he was collapsing sheets over the bed just as I was tossing my sheets in the air. This made me smile.

Finding synchronicity with other people in my life is essential to my mental well-being. I need at least one person who is tuned in to where I am at and vice versa. An out of sync relationship can wreck my brain for a while. Here's the thing though: part of having a true connection with another person requires having your very own independent rhythm to start. It would be cheating if I was only copying someone else's movements and calling it "synchronized". The beauty of finding that you are connected with another person is knowing that you were doing your thing and they were doing their's and then suddenly, you were together rocking and rolling in the same direction.

I value the little things: mirrored facial expressions, pedaling your bike to the same beat as another, finding humor in the same joke, being inspired by a similar activity. I think of little, delicate, spidery strings connecting my mind or limbs to another person's mind and limbs in these very moments. When I watch one person stand during a worship service at church and then watch the entire congregation follow I am moved because it is one living and breathing connection between each individual in the church body and God. If I went all spiritual meets X-files on you I would say that in that moment, a million little spidery strings would be bursting from the heart of each person in the congregation and stretching all the way to where God lives. Connection synchronized to the beat of the kick drum that my own husband taps with his foot steadily in rhythm.