Dear Reader,
It’s Confession Time.
I’ve no idea why I decided I had to share this with you today but I can’t sit on this any longer. It’s driving me bananas to keep it to myself so…here it goes.
On my holiday break, I became (slightly) obsessed with watching livestreams on an online shopping app.
Yes, it’s true: I sat in my Muskoka chair by our pool and watched videos and livestreams of people I have never heard of before selling Lug handbags and totes.
I was enchanted by the hosts interacting with viewers comments in the chat – speaking to them as though they were long-lost friends. And the viewers themselves talking in the chat about their lives, their recent surgeries, their pets, their pet’s surgeries (!)…not to mention the comments about the styles of the bags or the colours or patterns or pricing.
Somehow, in some mysterious way, I found myself in what can only be called a Community.
And I delighted in it.
I was invited to join a private Facebook Group because, well, it was clear that I was “new” to the Livestream as no one recognized my name.
It was kind of like being invited by Norm to sit on a barstool at Cheers!
And in that Group, I experienced this warm and heart-felt welcome. People asking me about where I am from and what bags I owned and did I like the butterflies on the new tote…
I couldn’t quite understand exactly what world I had entered. Who were these people? What were they really about? Was it actually possible that they had formed real bonds based solely on the love of a particular brand of handbag?
Well, in case you’re wondering…
The answer is yes, they really have formed real bonds based solely on the love of a particular brand of handbag. Some of these folks have travelled the country to meet one another in person. Some send flowers and notes on birthdays and special occasions. One babysat the other’s cat while she was away. They show up and pray for one another when they’re sick, and they cheer when they get new jobs or grandbabies go off to school for the first day.
Turns out, they are really nice people who just happened to find themselves in this Community, much as I had. And they stayed. And they built it into something that goes way beyond purses with great organization inside.
It’s been a marvel to witness, if I am to be honest.
It has warmed the cockles of this ol’ heart.
And, of course, it’s got me thinking, as these things do, about my own network and my own Community and how I Show Up (and when I don’t…and why that happens sometimes, too).
It’s made me think about what my version of inviting someone to sit on a barstool beside me looks like.
And it’s made me wonder what your version of that is, too.
How are each of us showing up for one another? Is it working for us and our Communities? What could we do differently? What else is possible?
Funny how stumbling across an ad for a handbag brought me exactly where I needed to be. Smack into inquiry about what else, indeed, is possible for all of us.
So glad to be in Community with all of you.
XX Rebecca
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