Welcome back to “The Gods Are Bored!” I’m Anne Johnson (still and always), and I’m typing with one finger. Guess it’s like doing things with one hand behind my back.
The title of this post comes from a Walt Whitman poem called “A Noiseless Patient Spider.” The poem is about the soul’s attempts to seek connection.
In the past few years, as I interacted with people on Facebook, I would often be quite surprised by their coldness and distance when I would see them in person. I would comment warmly and faithfully on all the photos they put up of pets and peeves. Then, in a true social situation, I would expect authentic connection, only to be met with bafflement on the other person’s part.
At the same time, my sphere of true connection shrank to bones. I have no close friends. When I am off work I socialize with my nuclear family and occasionally my sister and siblings-in-law.
It’s a narrow view of the world.
Last week, via Facebook, I discovered that one of my dearest former friends, the Monkey Man, had been hit by a car and was well nigh crushed. Tells you all you need to know that I wasn’t sure he would remember me when I showed up at his rehab center. But he did. We had a lot to talk about.
How could I have let this wonderful person go in favor of a computer screen?
Well, for one thing, my job exhausts me. And I have joined this larp group full of fun people who I wouldn’t call friends. Yet.
But no more excuses. I need to form real bridges. It’s my new goal for 2025.
Ha ha! Isn’t it rich that I’m announcing this resolution on a blog? Ironic. But it is a goal.
Maybe there’s a bored deity who will help me. They sure understand this kind of isolation.
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