The Beauty of the Chaos
By Z Zoccolante
He leans closer to me, his eyes a shade of ocean blue as the music blares and laughter pulses through the room, as he says it’s like being through a war. I smile as round me people open more beers to litter the table and in the kitchen two feet away a pretend boy band sways with the broom crooning to the beat. The ways in which we, as humans, bond through tough circumstances even if here of our own volitions.
She used the same phrase earlier, of war, and I find it interesting how we long to liken our experiences to the most bonding denominator.
We’ve all had that job where it’s tough to hang out with co-workers outside of work because the entire conversation finds the train back to the work place. But that is also bonding, common denominators.
It reminds me of summer camp when I was younger. How the joke is that the kids write letters home of how it’s terrible and the parents laugh it off. It reminds of a Simpsons episode where Bart and Lisa went to Camp Krusty and Lisa wrote this hilarious letter home about how they were losing hope. This, of course, right before they revolted and took over camp demanding the real Krusty to be present there.
I think about the theory that every experience we call in to our sphere is meant exactly for us at the perfect time. And I think of how every “Krusty camp” experience came with hilarious stories and friendships that were formed through circumstance.
Every college night out, or adventure, was the perfect writing room for inside jokes and craziness. Nights of ruining my suede shoes as I stepped in a puddle I thought was an inch deep instead of a foot, how 4 of us ended up in the shower with all our clothes still on laughing like fools.
I tell someone I write a lot with themes of connection and disconnection because isn’t that what life is all about. Someone tells me that the way to know if a relationship is a good fit is the way in which both of you are on the same page with those two polarities.
We seek connection in so many various ways the same way we seek love in whatever definition that means to us at that time.
When we rely on each other to accomplish something, to get through an experience, or sometimes even for survival, whether physical or emotional, we naturally bond. Differences don’t matter when you’re in the trenches together.
In high school summer camp, I got to do a high ropes course. In one of the exercises I had a partner and together we had to make our way up a huge latter in the sky where the further up you went the distance between the rungs grew. We had to be a team in order to make it, strategize, physically use each other’s bodies as stands and pull each other up, even climbing up each other. It reminded me that in those moments differences don’t matter. We were partnered to accomplish a task and if memory serves me correct we made it and belayed back down with giddy laughter from the tops of the trees and high fives on the ground.
There’s a familiar flavor in the bonding experience – the inside jokes, the humor we devise and craft out of crazy situations, and ways we check in or out together. The way we lose ourselves in each other in small ways to become a team.
And that is beautiful.
There was a saying I used a lot in college – the beauty of the chaos. There are so many life experiences since then that I’ve realized have this flavor.
No matter what the chaos, we as humans, even in subtle ways, seek beauty. We bond in the beauty of the chaos.
As I lean into the people around me with warmth in my heart I think, they are truly amazing.
And this weird life experience of being on earth is still so bizarre and beautiful.
With Love,
Z :)
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