How hot is it?

Oh, he's alive and well, if fagged to the limit with the heat.

I don't really know how hot it is, I don't have a thermometer. Maybe that's a good thing. I don't know.

But this isn't all what I want to write about today.

It's about a realization that has come to me over the last few days.

I will start by recounting a conversation I had early this morning with the sweet young woman who cut my hair. I don't know her exact age, but early 20's, is my guess.

I'm not sure how it came up, but I mentioned Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band album.

She had never heard of it.

I wish I could illustrate my utter and complete amazement upon hearing this.

Utter.

And complete.

But because she had music playing from her phone piped into the sound system in the salon [we were only the two hairstylists and myself] she pulled it up and started to play it. I was singing along. We had a great time. When I left, they were still listening to the album.

Anyway, I had a real culture and generational shock moment, and it's still with me.

The second thing happened a few days ago, where I, in the most unexpected and almost random way, had a three hour conversation with someone I have known since they were four years old.

I found out things about their struggles with life right now in a very profound way that changed my whole perspective on this person.

Utterly.

And completely.

Now we come to the point in this entry that will be hard to express. I'm not even sure if I can do it. But here goes....

We live in our own personal bubble. This idea has been a bit denigrated of late, and is seen as a bad thing. But I'm not talking about that kind of bubble. I'm talking about a consciousness bubble.

There is a book that discusses this inner life in great detail. I highly recommend it.

From his perspective, no one can really share our consciousness. We can TRY to explain it to another person, but the sum of our experiences of life are entirely unique on some level.

For instance... when I listened to Sgt. Pepper's when it came out, I literally sat in front of the stereo with the album cover in my lap and listened to the whole thing through. That's how it was done back then. It wasn't background music, it wasn't mobile, you had to be physically present with the record. It was kind of a meditative exercise.

When the hairdresser heard it for the first time, she pulled up Spotify on her phone and touched the screen and it played on speakers up near the ceiling. There was no record to watch going around, no album cover to touch and stare at with its crazy conglomeration of images on the front....

But, what happened when we listened to it together was, that our 'bubbles' weren't just touching on the surface, they merged a little. There was an overlapping space where I glimpsed her experience of life, and she mine.

In the second example, well, that conversation was much deeper and more complex. And I came away from it realizing that on some level, in ourselves, we are utterly alone. Our experiences of life are processed in our inner world in a way that we can only just barely express to another person.

But we CAN, with careful listening, and careful words certainly come closer. We can TRY.

However, it takes feeling safety and holding safe space to accomplish this. And when it happens... it's freaking magical.

These two experiences have opened my eyes to how difficult, but precious it is to really enter into another person's view of life. And how we should never give in to sticking people in categories when we really don't have a CLUE what is going on with them .... unless we enter into respectful.... or playful dialogue.

I feel enriched by these two encounters, and blessed that I was able to be present for them.

And I mean EVERYONE should have listened at least once to :