The human connection...

Quite by chance, I ended up watching a show on television the other night about the Hensel twins. The are conjoined twins, now roughly 18 years old. What amazed me the most is that each one controls one arm and one leg, yet they are able to ride a bike, drive a car, play softball, play piano, and type messages on a computer.

These activities aren't amazing earth shattering occurrences for most people -- you go through some awkwardness while learning, then you "just do it" (as if everything in life is easy). In their case, it represents a level of awareness, communication, and coordination that most people don't need every second of every day. They make it look easy -- but as anyone who has tried a three legged race knows, even simple activities aren't.

I have been marveling at their accomplishment, wondering how it all worked when I had an everyday event...

My wife and I were out shopping. At some point, without a word, or other gesture that I recall, she handed me something to hold, and just as wordlessly, I took it. A simple pair of actions with little or no coordination between us. It isn't typing one hand of an email, nor swinging a bat with good timing and alignment, but it is a form of well-practiced coordination; a sign that we've been married a long time, and shopping together a enough times to have developed an almost automatic situational awareness.

So I write this in celebration of the human connection -- of being alive in the world and well connected...

rootie