Everything/ Nothing Happens While Waiting for the Ladies Washroom

There are human invented spaces and imaginary boundaries that keep people from connected with one another.  What creates this space and environment? What criteria are necessary to enable or disable an environment to connect with other humans?

One night at a crowded and late-night bar in Chicago, while standing in a bathroom full of women, more than likely intoxicated and waiting patiently for a stall, I couldn’t help but notice a strange silence amongst the line of ladies.  Just minutes earlier, before opening the bathroom door, these same people were flirting and chatting with strangers and friends.  What is it about a bathroom space that stops the lines of communication? 

Backstage at a local Austin festival, Fun Fun Fun Fest, again while waiting in line for the toilet, a woman was leaving the bathroom facility with steps leading 3 feet down. It being dark, the woman was unable to see the steps and falls off the bathroom ledge.  She tumbles and rolls down the gravel ground.  It would have been mortifying if it was you, but what I found even more mortifying was the lack of reaction from the women waiting in line for the bathroom.  No one wanted to lose their spot in line in order to help this woman up.  How did this imaginary line that WE arbitrarily formed, make us stuck in this space, afraid to help another, in fear that another person would not be kind enough to give ones position back in line?

I think a lot about connecting with people and also how easy it is to misconnect and disconnect with people. In a previous post, I spoke about the friendliness amongst concert goers inside festival walls, and the lack of love and connection as soon as you leave the festival.   My very first post titled “Disappearing into the world” referred to the ability to wipe yourself or another person from your life.  I posted, “I am fascinated how two people’s paths can cross and just like that, that person can disappear into the world.”

One night in Austin, at a bar called Lustre Pearl, I met a person who was traveling across the U.S. He had started in San Francisco (but from New York) and was in Austin for one day until he moved to the next city.  We had an instant connection and spent the entire evening talking.  The bar closed and everyone came back to my house to make grilled cheese.  I had opened my couch to this person, who although had a sleeper van, had asked to stay on my couch.  After thinking about it and realizing that may have not been the safest decision, I had asked my friend to drive him back to his van after the night concluded. Previously that night, Traveling Mystery Man had requested that I play tour guide and show him around the city.  Of course I had accepted and was delighted to spend more time with this wonderful person and show off the city that I have grown to love!  After kicking him out, I had offended him, he did not call me the next day for the tour.  We did not exchange numbers, emails, facebook requests, or text messaging.  It was a one way communication that he did not want to pursue and he literally disappeared into the world. 

In one night you can meet a wonderful person, in which you had no expectation that your paths would cross and only given certain circumstances that had to line up, did your paths ever cross in the first place. It blows my mind how many people there are in this world, how many people I will never get to meet, and how many people I have had the opportunity to become friends with.  I love hearing “how we met story” or the “how we became friends” tales.  There are so many interesting beginnings. It’s the history of a relationship that can be so wonderful or how it can damage so many people if we let it. It’s our experiences that shape our values, beliefs and who we are, but more importantly it is how we take those situations and react and personalize them.

I have had the opportunity to reconnect with several old college and high school friends over the last month.  Some I hadn’t seen for a year, others I hadn’t had seen or spoken to them for over 6 years.  Being with these people felt so natural and comfortable, something about history has comfort; like an old song that you instantly recognize. Will I ever reconnect old with old camp buddies, previous co-workers, old best friends? And then there are instances where you do not want to run into old high school friends and previous school mates.   No bad connections, just misconnections, no connections, or no opportunity for connections.


The situation plays a big role if individuals are given the opportunity to connect.   It’s known that a crowded bar is hard to connect.  Thanksgiving weekend I visited home and went to a local bar with a lot of my old high school classmates.  This is not a scene I enjoy. An empty bar with only a few other people, you can actually give a person an opportunity to really express themselves as a person. I personally put a lot of thought into an outfit.  When I walk into public, I like to express myself in the way I dress. Connecting with a person is a lot of work and requires a lot of attention.  Situations where attention is unable to be given is a situation for misconnection.  What I mean by misconnection is sending a message, verbal or nonverbal to another person that you do not mean to represent who you are as a person or how you would like to represent yourself.

A disconnection is losing touch with a person.  I found this to be the case a lot with proximity.  In all living situations when I have lived one on one with another person, we had become best of friends.  Once we move out of the house from one another, we would grow apart.  I vividly remember standing in an empty dorm room freshman year, crying goodbye onto my rooms shoulder.  4 years later, crying on the street to my college friends who were leaving town and moving to another city.  I knew what once was, would never be again. And what we had in at that time in my life would never be exist again.  All of these wonderful relationships, as soon as the situation changes, will change as well.  When my current roommate, drunkenly asked me in the kitchen last night my future living plans, I couldn’t help but turn to her and tell her that I can’t gush enough of how she has become my family here in Austin. 

When my last boyfriend and I decided to end our relationship, the hardest part for me to get over was our paths going in different directions.  I am thank for all the people who have entered, exited, returned, and still to meet in my life.

I appreciate you.

While writing this post, I listened to the entire album of Cat Power: You are Free, First Aid Kit: The Big the Black and the Blue and in correspondence to my post please listen to

"Almost Lover” by A Fine Frenzy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsWsasqIoyk&ob=av2e

Your fingertips across my skin
The palm trees swaying in the wind
Images

You sang me Spanish lullabies
The sweetest sadness in your eyes
Clever trick

I never want to see you unhappy
I thought you'd want the same for me

Goodbye, my almost lover
Goodbye, my hopeless dream
I'm trying not to think about you
Can't you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
I should've known you'd bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do

We walked along a crowded street
You took my hand and danced with me
Images

And when you left you kissed my lips
You told me you'd never ever forget these images, no

I never want to see you unhappy
I thought you'd want the same for me

Goodbye, my almost lover
Goodbye, my hopeless dream
I'm trying not to think about you
Can't you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
I should've known you'd bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do

I cannot go to the ocean
I cannot drive the streets at night
I cannot wake up in the morning
Without you on my mind
So you're gone and I'm haunted
And I bet you are just fine
Did I make it that easy
To walk right in and out of my life?

Goodbye, my almost lover
Goodbye, my hopeless dream
I'm trying not to think about you
Can't you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
I should've known you'd bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do