The Bridge #108
in which we drop in for tea and stay for dinner
Hello
& Welcome ! The Bridge is a newsletter connecting the professional and the personal creatively across cultures and a diversity of topics, until we are not only full of ideas but also ready to take action. Thanks for joining in the conversation.
If ever you’ve spent extensive time in front of a work of art, treating it almost like a meditation on the work that went into creating the thing itself, but also just enjoying the beauty, OR if you’ve ever re-read a book you love or re-watched a show or wanted to talk about a song you enjoy because there’s so much detail and it’s just so fun to feel the connection in (re)listening and talking about it together, … Well then you’ve come to the right place!
Each time we show up, and stay present for what is, we remember a little deeper the reason, and it feels grounding.
Something to Consider
The song is featured in the ending credits of a first episode of a new TV show called A Man on the Inside, which features Ted Danson as the lead actor and is based on a Spanish-language documentary film about a man well-past-retirement-age who is hired as a secret agent to go into a retirement home and investigate a situation.
This song was created in the wilds of the minds of a band called The Olivia Tremor Control, and it was released in 1996.
This song felt to me like the perfect way to set a tone after experiencing the pacing of a story that balances humor and drama in a way that encourages us to connect in a genuine way with the TV show characters (people like the retired professor’s daughter, raising three sons with her husband, but also concerned about the loneliness of her father recently widowed).
I’m not saying you “need to watch” the show A Man on the Inside. I am saying that we might as well consider the joy that it is knowing people took time to make a show about a retirement home that is funny and kind-hearted and gentle. I’m grateful as well for the silly lyrics of the song (“The Opera House”) that they chose to end their season beginning.
We feel OK /
Which is how we feel most of the time now /
Nothing can be done without the willingness to succeed /
Let's go to the opera /
Something to Read
Altar to an Erupting Sun by Chuck Collins
Chuck Collins has mostly written non-fiction in his long life, but in this most recent case he wrote a novel, a kind of near-future historical novel, that tells the true story of movement building in America and helps us appreciate the human scale of how change happens.
The story (entitled Altar to an Erupting Sun) begins with an old lady willfully choosing to end her life as a suicide bomber, taking the CEO of a major oil company with her on the journey. The story ends with the aftermath of all that, including a thoughtfully put-together memorial service that celebrates the old lady’s life of activism and also a gathering of people who want to reflect on the consequences of her final act. In between is a history that we rarely learn about, the history of how to resist, in collective solidarity with others and without certain outcomes.
To resist is to remind ourselves and others of our power to choose another way.
If nothing else, resist the urge to say “not another book!” and see if you can read a little more about this particular book, via an author interview. It’s really rather good.
Something to Enjoy
The Bridge began as a newsletter for all those people in my life I wanted to continue in conversation with, without obligating a response, as well as a way to balance my creation with my consumption. I didn’t only want to read what others are writing. I wanted to be communicating my own thoughts, processing what I was taking in.
I believe we’re relating with one another when we listen or read or write or speak or sit together in silence. & I wanted to take away some of the guilt and shame we can feel when someone says something to us or writes us a message, and we don’t know what to say back. The connection can still be there, and it’s OK to have time in between the hearing and the processing and the responding.
Let’s not let “shame over not knowing what to say back” stop us from (re)connecting.
From my pre-teen years until my late 20s I did let shame overwhelm my desires to connect, and it solitudified me. Today though I would feel no shame (re)telling that story, because I have discovered The Bridge, 😊 which connects me to you.
Something to Practice
If there’s a friend or family member you have been in touch with previously, and they sent you a text message or called you once, and it was a busy time or a difficult time, and you didn’t know what to say then, but now you feel ashamed a little getting back in touch because it’s been so long…
Write them / call them back. Get back in touch. No shame. Just do it 😎
Thanks for being here with me,
JPC