Meeting Up

It’s spring. In Oklahoma that means storms. Wind, rain, lightening, hail, hooks that turn into tornadoes on a dime. Every day is an adventure. We move about doing what we normally do but with one eye on the radar, perpetually “weather aware.” Sometimes super cells manifest, sometimes they don’t.  But when they do, they turn things upside down.  Tree limbs, garbage cans, pool chair cushions, roofs -- any and every item not battened down, as well as plenty that are-- end up someplace where they’re not supposed to be. And often, the conveniences of our modern world (that we think we can’t live without) go with them. Electric lines come down, the power goes and people go out with it. Out of homes and buildings, onto mutual turf, where we do what we don’t normally do. 

We talk.

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Eyeball to eyeball, mouth to ear, body language and the human spirit unobstructed by a conduit in the middle. The storms rock us, we exhale, then we meet up.

And the strangest thing happens. We are friends whether or not we have ever met before. In the street by the fan-shaped glow of a flashlight, we are kind. We are affable. We laugh and share information. To our astonishment, the back-and-forth (complete with mannerisms and facial expressions) is a lot like riding a bike. As it turns out, connection without pixels isn’t a scary, sharp-toothed tiger after all.

Technology is such a good thing. I’m so grateful for a cell phone that has FaceTime—an instantaneous way, no matter where I am, to look into my granddaughter’s green eyes. I love computers equipped with Zoom or Google Meet that enable members of a team to connect across state lines— or continents. I even appreciate the dinging alert that tells me when Shohei Ohtani hits another homerun. Technological advancements give us a way to get together. They allow us to sync up with others when we are worlds apart. But they can also suck us in, dangerously becoming our default mode of communication even when we’re riding in a car together or sitting in the same room.

We miss so much when trapped behind a screen, alone inside our skin. 

One of the coolest things about The Masters, golf’s iconic tournament played in Heaven at Augusta, is the rules.  You can’t wear denim, you can’t bring coolers. Backpacks are only welcome if they can be seen through. Diaper bags and medical kits, however, are okay. It’s also acceptable to bring an umbrella or a lawn chair. But don’t even try to scoot in with a cell phone in your pocket. You can’t get devices past the gate. No cameras. No tablets. No laptops or beepers. When you walk onto the grounds at Augusta, if you want to connect with others, you have to do it the old-fashioned way.

Once inside the no-techno grounds, you have no way of knowing, when posted up on the tenth hole, the magic that is happening out of the bunker on number four. You don’t know who hit in the water at twelve or who jugged a bump-and-run from three feet outside the fringe on number one. There are only two ways to find out—with baited-breath by watching the leader board or by hearing the roar riding on the wind through the towering pines trees.

And the best part about it? Putting the pieces together with thousands of your new best friends. 

To figure out how Rory fell back two and Max moved up a spot or who it was that ignited the eruption up 18, you have to talk to people. A guy in a pink cap walks up and says he saw Rory hit it in the flora and the fauna and you tell the lady in the floppy hat, “That has to be how he fell back.” Then somebody says that somebody else saw Max Homa make an Eagle. You say to the guy who is biting his nails, “That must have been the roar.” 

When the man on the scaffold behind the leader board drops the latest updates over the metal rod with an intentional dramatic slam, electricity shoots through the gallery as if someone flipped a breaker releasing a surge of awe. Collectively the crowd erupts.  You hard high-five a stranger, fist bump someone’s grandpa and hug everyone you came in with as well as lots of those you didn’t. Then conversations break out on all sides, the skin of humans opening to let one another in.

Person to person to person to person. Eyeballs to eyeballs. Mouths to ears. People swell with the aliveness of one another. The of magic meeting up.

P.S. My Battery Died Too