Attention and Connection

Growing up as an only child to a single mother inherently meant I spent a lot of time around adults. My mom’s friends would comment about how impressed they were with my ability to converse with them.

Almost like a tiny grownup.

And truthfully, I was far more comfortable with adults than with my peers. I was an extremely shy child who grew notoriously LOUD when I started to feel some semblance of comfort with a group.

A misfit with adults and a misfit with peers.

I dubbed myself a “lonely only”, and spent a lot of time being quiet in my room, with books as my main companion. I could dive for hours into the worlds of others. Either the characters were far less lonely than I, which allowed me to dream of a different reality. Or they were just as lonely, and I experienced a kindred spirit.

Nevertheless, the feeling of loneliness is one that has stuck by my side.

I recently brushed against this quote from Julia Cameron. It caught hold of me and still clings to me,

“The reward for attention is always healing. It may begin as the healing of a particular pain—the lost lover, the sickly child, the shattered dream. But what is healed, finally, is the pain that underlies all pain: the pain that we are all, as Rilke phrases it, “unutterably alone.” More than anything else, attention is an act of connection.”

And if that doesn’t just hit you right in the gut, I don’t know what will.

Paying attention heals the pain of being unutterably alone. It provides connection.

In that swift moment, about 300 puzzle pieces of my life fell together. I suddenly understood yet one more, very important reason why photography has become dear to me. It forces me to pay attention, and gives me the means with which to capture the moment.

It makes me feel less alone.

I know some people hate feeling tethered to their camera for every beautiful moment that glides by, but for me, it’s a compulsion. Capturing the beauty helps me remember it, and the importance of remembering is the same as the importance of connection. Certain experiences are almost divine in nature and if I don’t catch it with my camera, the memory is washed away.

The thread of connection dissolves.

These are moments in which you just know you’re experiencing a universe that is greater than yourself, and yet you are completely integral to it.

We are meant to stand in awe of snow piling upon pines. To see and smell the delicate blossoms in spring. To stand at the precipice of a vista with the wind lulling us to peace. To notice the way the floodlight of your house captures the glitter of a bitterly cold snow.

We have to experience them or else their adjectives cease to be. And when we experience them, we are connected to the earth and to the other myriad individuals who have stood or currently stand in awe of the same majesty.

We see this in the allure of the moon. Unlike the sun, we have the gift of looking directly at it, and at any given time someone 10 feet away or 1,000 miles away could be paying attention to the the same moon. And those of us who pay attention know on a gut level that anyone else standing outside, chin to the sky in admiration has a desire for connection too.

Our sight lines being the invisible thread that connects anonymous dreamers together.

In that moment of wonder, the resonance in our bones reverberates the message that we are not alone.