Renewing the Soul
May. 1st, 2021 09:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mama_kestrelI just spent 3 days in Chicago with friends I haven't seen in 2 years. We're all fully vaccinated and extremely careful in general, so it wasn't unduly risky.
It was wonderful. We talked, and ate, and napped when we wanted/ needed to, and didn't go anywhere except a single run to the Japanese grocery for sushi. We got a hotel suite with a kitchenette complete with dishwasher, which had a sitting room with a foldout couch and a bedroom with 2 beds. It was a lovely, gentle reintroduction to seeing people in hug-space.
Running up to it, I found I really wasn't thinking about anything else. I have email I still haven't answered from before I headed out; hopefully I'll get to the rest of that tomorrow. I made packing lists. I baked. I asked M.F., who has a colostomy, what she can and cannot eat. I asked M.P. what kitchenware I needed to bring. There was a lot of "remind me to tell you about." We agreed that games might be fun, but never touched them. We just talked, and enjoyed being with someone that we hadn't seen every day.
And we listened. All of us listened, and responded. That was the biggest thing, and I didn't even realize it until I got home and it was back to business as usual. I was heard. It's hard to explain, but the contrast was huge. No one was focused on a computer, or behind headphones, or paying so much attention to a show's dialog that a question asked from 2 feet away doesn't even register. We've gotten through this year by creating our own little bubbles. But we need to change that, and I don't know that I'd have even seen it if I hadn't spent 3 days at our own little micro relaxicon.
It was wonderful. We talked, and ate, and napped when we wanted/ needed to, and didn't go anywhere except a single run to the Japanese grocery for sushi. We got a hotel suite with a kitchenette complete with dishwasher, which had a sitting room with a foldout couch and a bedroom with 2 beds. It was a lovely, gentle reintroduction to seeing people in hug-space.
Running up to it, I found I really wasn't thinking about anything else. I have email I still haven't answered from before I headed out; hopefully I'll get to the rest of that tomorrow. I made packing lists. I baked. I asked M.F., who has a colostomy, what she can and cannot eat. I asked M.P. what kitchenware I needed to bring. There was a lot of "remind me to tell you about." We agreed that games might be fun, but never touched them. We just talked, and enjoyed being with someone that we hadn't seen every day.
And we listened. All of us listened, and responded. That was the biggest thing, and I didn't even realize it until I got home and it was back to business as usual. I was heard. It's hard to explain, but the contrast was huge. No one was focused on a computer, or behind headphones, or paying so much attention to a show's dialog that a question asked from 2 feet away doesn't even register. We've gotten through this year by creating our own little bubbles. But we need to change that, and I don't know that I'd have even seen it if I hadn't spent 3 days at our own little micro relaxicon.
