I often find it’s a miracle that any two people can be on the same wavelength for any period of time. Be it a romantic relationship, working relationship, or a friendship, jumping on board with someone else isn’t always easy. If you’ve ever moved away from your family or life-long friends you’ll really know what I mean. Sharing pieces of yourself, trying to find common ground, wanting to be seen and understood, these can be some of the most difficult moments and yearnings to face. And the truth is, we are often not on the same page with many people we meet.
When you’re finding people to join your project, collaborate with you on an idea or even just have a carefree night of drinks, it often takes a special mix of timing, personality and motivations that need to coalesce together in just the right way. If even one ingredient is missing, things feel off. There is a dissonance that our first urge will want to correct. We will try to compensate by adjusting ourselves, bending our ways to make the situation nice (or maybe I’m only speaking for myself here..).
The very thing that makes finding a friend, lover or partner special is the fact that not everyone can be that person. The rarity is what makes it sacred. And yet, that’s the very thing we hate when we don’t have it. All we want is to fall back in the arms of our old friends. People you don’t have to work to be with. You don’t have to explain yourself or show your life, you’ve been there done that. But we are forgetting that the beginning part of a relationship is tender and wonderful in its own right. You get the opportunity to be new again. You are yourself, but that other person is bringing out different sides of you, their chemistry is interacting with yours to create unexpected concoctions. It’s the unknown we fear and it’s the unknown that’s lush and fragrant with possibility. This is where we feel small again. Where we aren’t already something, rather, we are nothing, a board that chalk has yet to mark.
This is when we must summon the strength to unfold, to bend down in a child’s pose surrender of it all. These are the moments where we need not stress if we are saying things right, if we are being too much, if we are strange. This is when we must shake off those little briars of fear and try our best not to judge what comes out. A lesson that often needs repeating, but is wise to remember for our own sanity.
It’s also a lesson that brings me to today’s collaboration. I couldn’t be more excited to share a friend’s amazing work on my blog. This was one of those moments when I had an idea for a post, but I needed another piece to make it whole, to give it a texture, opulence and richness that my words alone couldn’t provide. To convey my idea, I needed the energy of Ms. Sandi Petrie. Sandi is a renaissance woman and the kind of girl you love to be around. I met her through a mutual friend and never had those quells of wonder if we were on the same frequency or not. It was clear we were. She has a warmth and southern roughness that puts you at ease like lemonade on a front porch. She is also a talented artist, musician and knitter, among other things. She goes by the name of Lonesome Daughter and it seems her creations know no bounds.
When I explained my idea for a piece of writing that came to me during a nighttime drive, where I looked up and saw that web of light people often muse about, it could have been interpreted as trite, as cliché, but Sandi was game and she helped me take my experience and dream world into a new reality.
Without further ado, I’m happy to share my bubble of thoughts and Sandi’s paintings that arose through separate but connected drives through the French countryside.
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Staring up at the stars made my mind flash with all of those moments of yearning. The first harried kisses ensconced in darkness. That time I laid on my car after watching Across the Universe in high school, willing myself to feel some cosmic connection, anything to feel a part of something. A flight over a murky ocean, flying away from the familiar and headed towards nothing I could give a proper name.
My astrophysicist friend, she studies this world everyday. I wondered about how she must feel. Does she feel more grounded in daily life through her pursuit of the expansive, elusive space we are suspended in? Does she bother herself as much with the daily trifles? Does looking up all the time give you deeper roots down?
So many writers and people who came before speak of the awe, of the wonder, of feeling a part of something bigger. “We are made of star stuff.” Yes, we know. And yet, you can’t grasp it until it grasps you, transfixing your imagination, dwarfing you down, making you finally perk up. “Pay attention, open your fucking eyes,” it says.
It’s just a net encircling the globe, and yet it’s a conduit to something grander. It cuts straight through the darkness to the freest part of you. The part that wants to unleash the fire that burns above with no intention of containing its force.
To be understood and satisfied before we flicker out, that is what lies before us. The studded net above transforming our widest and most urgent inspiration into a touchable handle we can carry within our palm. A tool that guides, a worry stone that soothes our uneasy minds. Stoic pricks through the curtain we cloak ourselves with everyday. A tool, not for survival, but for sustenance. For a love we only know when we know it.
For more of Lonesome Daughter’s work, be sure to follow her on Facebook.
