The car was encased in a very thin layer of ice. We’d had freezing rain overnight.

My scraper wasn’t getting through the windshield very well. There’s a small divot in the lower corner on the driver’s side and I was afraid of cracking it further, so I use much pressure.

Back in the car, I turned the front and back defrosters on and waited.

Driving toward the gym, little rivulets of water start to snake down toward the wipers. Stopped at a light, I notice how many of the smaller trails wind their way toward a larger streak that had fallen fast and straight when I had to break with little warning, joining forces before dropping into the cowl (I actually googled what that part of the car is called and it is called the cowl).

Others just mosey on their own, meandering, meandering, a zig, a zag, another zig, like a small steel ball in a marble run.

Community/Self.

Interesting, I think. Some join, some stay solitary.

I want the reason to be philosophical even when I know physics likely has the answer.

I go philosophical anyway.

I’ve talked before about holding opposites. And here I am again considering two seemingly opposing ideas. Single/together. Alone/united. Solitary/connected.

Both are necessary. There are times I need to separate, find my feet or stretch into a new way of being, leaving behind what doesn’t fit—or fits less well—to make room for growth and change.

But even then, I think, heading straight into the deep weeds, am I truly alone? When I’m reaching for new perspective, aren’t I being pulled forward, not just on my own stamina and motivation, but also by everyone who’s done the work before me and all those there now?

What if we consider that nothing we do is wholly solitary?

That we and everything are all, at last, connected.

How would that change how you show up in the world?

The Light Links

Do trees talk to each other?

Yellowstone: Bison

The Socratic method: questions instead of answers