Never separate, always connected.

I feel the pressure of the concrete pushing up on my thighs. I sit on the waist-high shelf formed from an entrance to the ruins of the old church. My heels press against the wall as I look out at the yellow pilas where indigenous women used to wash their clothes. Cars, tuk tuks, and motorcycles pass in front of me on the cobblestones, sometimes fumigating me with exhaust. The missing pieces in the arch overhead create a pattern of firm smoothness and aged scars, a testament to its many experiences. My hands press firmly on the rough surface, creating intricate and complex patterns in the skin of my palms. Seemingly ancient twenty foot doors tower behind me, emitting both a sense of wisdom and wear as if they embodied the priests who may have once served within the church.

I realize if I lift my legs up and scoot back into the recessed concrete cove, I could hide myself a bit from the world. I re-situate myself, crossing my legs and supporting my back against the worn wooden door frame, I open my back-pack and begin to observe the world through the lens of my camera. A group of teens sitting in the pilas populate my frame for a moment. A police officer and his friend walk along the uneven sidewalk entering my view and then disappearing again. Two women sit gently speaking with one another as my small window of the world passes over them. I feel almost invisible, safe behind my shield with life continuing around me, seemingly unaltered. I am nearly separate, unnoticed, and external, completely invulnerable and inconsequential to those around me... or so it felt for a moment.

As I observe my surroundings from a distance, continuing my plan to remain unnoticed, suddenly a older gentleman appears directly on the sidewalk before me. He turns and notices me almost immediately, somewhat surprised to see a random man with a camera sitting in the recesses of the church's entrance. He says hello and somewhat quizzically asks "¿Como estás?" At first it seemed peculiar, almost uncomfortable, that this man could somehow see into my little world, my closed off reality. How did he so matter-of-factly find me in my separateness and what made him decide to stop and inquire? We begin a polite conversation that eventually and oddly leads to the topic of my home state of West Virginia and the song Country Roads, a song he apparently loves. Then, just as suddenly as he appeared, he says "Tenga un buen día" and continues walking toward his destination. My sense of separateness was dissolved; my cove of solitude, revealed to be false; my distance from the situation, imaginary.

It was impossible for me to hide, separate myself from the world. I could not remove myself from the goings on of Antigua, Guatemala. My mere presence was altering the path of a gentleman, enlightening me on the popularity of a song, and calling attention to the oddity of my actions. Life was still going on with me in it, whether I wanted to recognize it or not. This connectedness to the world and people around me is both daunting and exciting. In every moment my body, mind, and presence is interacting with and influencing the actions, perceptions, understandings, and ideas of people around me. In every second, I am influenced and changed by every aspect of the world around me. Even the direction of the wind is altered as I feel it pass across my cheeks, sending chills down my spine. It is inescapable.

I am integrated – linked to every atom, substance, and person in the world. Even memories of people and years past, influence how I interacted with that man. Songs I have learned, languages I have stumbled through, and obstacles I have overcome all emerge in my interactions with the world today. I am connected and carry the years of my experiences and interactions with me. I cannot elude the reality of my synthesis with the world. I am, in every moment, affecting you, and you me. We each carry that effect with us for the rest of our lives, holding the experience of the other in ourselves, remembering, learning, and feeling.

Once, a long time ago when I was very young, my family experienced a great loss, a time when it felt like the whole world had been ripped away from us and we stood alone, separated, angry, and isolated. At this time, for some odd reason, I made up a song:        "A line, a line, a so far line. That's how we stay together."

It seems silly to think of a simple line connecting each and every one of us, passing through time and space to connect us to someone we had lost. But maybe my five year old brain was grasping at something it took me 20 more years to even begin to understand. We are all pervasively consequential to one another. We are linked, whether we like it or not.

We are connected. We are integrated with and through each other. I carry the love, experiences, challenges, and interactions with all my family members, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances with me every day. Sometimes they reside in the recesses of my soul, hiding, seemingly forgotten. However, every once in awhile, a moment occurs, a man asks me how I am doing, and I am reminded that I exist as a deeply connected being to everyone and everything around me, even those who have left us. I carry them with me in the way I say hello to a stranger, care for a friend, or say I love you. Our connectedness does not stop at the living. Their memory and existence have forever altered the trajectory of my life and will always have a place in my soul. They are never lost – nothing is ever lost.

Although we sometimes don't want to admit the illusion of our separateness when it means loving and caring for those who we don't really enjoy, it challenges me to live life continuously reminded that I am always deeply consequential to others and they to me, even with the most random of passers-by. And further, it gives me great comfort to know that, no matter how far or where I go, I carry with me the love and experience of those who have left me. I always carry them with me in every breath I take and every action I do.

I am never separate, even from them. Instead, always connected.