TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

  

VIEWING ALL POSTS FOR: JULY 2005

Friday, July 29, 2005

4:21 PM
Posted by jodi rose

comments from an article by sebastian smee in the weekend before last Australian review section, and a review of a book on actors and their methods.

process - artist - statements

art should be obstinately singular and indepenent
art needs to be cogent, beautiful, confronting or convincing on its own terms
It is extremely important that art be unjustifiable
Ars Gratia Artis Art for Art's sake

You can talk about the internal, mystical, psychological, alchemical aspects, but acting is very practical. It's about doors, shoes, walking, turning. Being heard, being fat, being skinny, being naked.

You feel the relationship between their real life and their performances just flows back and forth in a series of circles and loops.

Every sigh, every shuffle, every look, every gesture; they've not only done them before while acting, they're part of the way they live.
You sense she needs to act and that acting is a craving.
She has the capacity for intelligent anxiousness that makes anything she does compelling and she works meticulously with an almost grim purpose.

Any australian actor will tell you that all too often their life is a joyless one of small-time heartbreaks and quiet desperation, rumour and grievance, much of it spent disguising their depression. And that's when times are good.

Some actors mimic others, while others get inside the 'skin' of the character, which can sometimes awkwardly spill over into private life. Some find a character wholly within themselves. Some stay themselves. Some work from the outside in, others from the inside out. Some find the character immediately, some never find it.

Acting in Australia is about 'grasping, pecking in the dirt, hacking through the bushes, juggling, chasing rainbows, searching for light, a million sparkles.'

each had a belief structure, a kind of personal culture impressed with the marks of family, lover, failures and success, insecurities and pride.

davis has the great actor's ability to alter instantly, she can rewire the brain in a second. acting does things to the brains chemistry and that the natural state of mind for an actor is that of someone on stage trying to show outwardly what he doesn't feel inwardly.

what do actors do? they take fragments from many sources and piece them together into a matrix or a mandala, rather than adhering to any formal method or process.

all these working ideas become like a series of concentric circles - disciplined patterns and weaves - within a square during the actor's working life, occasionally intersecting, sometimes colliding.

Their impulses and fancies, their talent, is guided and forged by discipline and by methodological fragments. struggling as everyone does in trying to find an explanation for what it is actors do, which is to live truthfully under imaginary circumstances.

For some it's cathartic. Judy Davis once told me that for her, acting had been a confronting process of accepting the fact that finally you can't hide 'these pieces of yourself'; to continue to act, you have to be prepared for everything that's possible to be revealed.

Friday, July 29, 2005

4:11 PM
Posted by jodi rose

'the limits of my language mean the limits of my world'
according to the eminent philosopher ludwig wittgenstein, quoted in a public art work on the torrens river.

thinking about it, and yes, that makes perfect sense.
not understanding the world someone lives in makes it very difficult to communicate or share anything with them - not all 'verbal' languages of course. learning new forms of expression and communication - through movement, gesture, staging, animation, hoops....!

applied to personal realm, I almost managed to have a romance recently, but after a short time kissing and being ridiculous, the boy somehow lost his zing and decided that he didn't want any more casual encounters, and as we weren't in a relationship and would most likely cross paths in the future and probably work together, we shouldn't 'be intimate' because he didn't want it to be weird next time we met. I did my level best to convince him that I'd much rather actually have the experience with the possibility of disappointment afterwards than not have the fun and be definitely disappointed - but he didn't see it like that and I couldn't be bothered dealing with ambivalence yet again.

so, that learned me something about not expressing feelings of self-doubt in 'romantic' moments - it only seems to confuse people.

in case you're wondering 'why the sudden personal revelations', well I don't usually write about my so-called 'personal life' partly to protect the guilty :) but mainly because I don't really manage to have one. not ongoing at least, beyond the occasional flash of festival fever.
having to face some of those very personal demons recently - ouch!

something too on the tip of my mind about how if you're going to make a life in art, you have to committ to it totally and completely. forget about anything else for a while. focus focus focus. and passion.

working on self-belief. at all times, in all circumstances. I just don't have time for anxiety or self-doubt anymore. there's too much to do.

all my work at tps was about being vulnerable and revealed.
intimacy and vulnerability kept coming up as the themes - and even when i wasn't thinking about them, manifested in things like the security camera watching the dancers - reflecting my need to always have a layer of technology between myself as an artist/performer and the audience/listener.

learning to be brave.

again
and
again
and
again
and
again
and
again.

Friday, July 29, 2005

4:01 PM
Posted by jodi rose

in response to a close friend, who email and asked: 'where are you, are you really in adelaide, and what are you doing? I need to know, it keeps me vaguely sane!'

oh dear thanks for that email, it made me chuckle to think that my demented ramblings could be contributing to anyone's grip on sanity - but am very glad they do!! yes it is all true, I spent two weeks in glorious adelaide staying in apartments at the dodgy end of hindley street, doing art camp with 20 artists and 5 facilitators. sorry in advance for the following lapses in punctuation - set off a stream of consciousness rave.

during one of our daily feedback/critique sessions Kirsten - one of the lovely artists - came up with the term boot camp and it stuck. we also called it artists big brother - just without the tv show. the facilitators put us in groups and gave us tasks for the first week - we had 24 hours to go away and come up with a performance for the rest of the group. my first one was with elka (video artist and rave organiser from darwin) and sam (theatre director and performer from adelaide) and we all swapped roles - had to be 'out of our comfort zone' hmmm that was tricky! -so I did images and she wrote and he did sound. theme was 'water' from a tourist point of view, and so we took it very literally and made a cheesy travelogue presentation of our day trip to the beach at glenelg with the audience sitting in bus formation seating and elka as the surrealist tour guide.

next day worked with greg and noelle, we weren't allowed to use any technology and had to transform the space in some way (we had the run of the entire adelaide school of art facility - pretty wild, lots of dance studios and theatres and other spaces to play in). so there was this dark corridor that reminded me of a mental asylum, and we devised this performance with noelle as the mad scientist and me as the aslyum warden, walking along checking the narrow windows in each door and writing notes in my clipboard.

for our last group project, we got to choose our own collaborators, so I played with ingrid, brownyn, elka and steve - the theme this time was anything with a 'dramatical arc' (poetic translation by threes anna - hardcore fabulous facilitator who directed dogtroep theatre spectacular extravaganzas for 12 years - we think she meant 'dramatic arc' - http://www.threesanna.com/ - see theatre projects link for more info)

so we had a johnny cash man in black moment and decided to do a butoh style western showdown - while hanging out in my new favourite cafe/bar cherry bomb, which had it's official opening a week later - the adelaide locals were amused that we kept finding and taking them to these new cool places they'd never heard of - drinks and dancing at lotus lounge later in the week to farewell julianne pierce from anat - had kava on the last night after our farewell dinner, with fiona; and pole danced during our blue light rave with sarah... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

ok back to the butoh guns at sunset - bronwyn and steve devised this great slow moving shootout culminating in her killing him with a hoop - this was filmed and projected over the two of them sitting at a cafe having a romantic dinner - looked amazing, their bodies rose up from the projection behind the real people and had this internal fight while they chatted and pretended to like each other. I made the soundtrack with lots of snippets from flamenco to serge gainsbrough - but we got totally slammed in our critique for being cliched and weakening our dramatical arc with the pacing of the fight. but it was based on butoh, I wanted to scream, we were playing with cliches and twisting them - I got in trouble for the music being too 'cinematic'... whatever that meant - tugging at people's emotions, I think. ..but...but...but it was all about manipuating the audience...

anyway, we had a great time, and I learnt some hoop tricks from bron for my solo performance - it was very cute you would have laughed - made a video of me doing ridiculous ott performance with the hoops in a long flowing black and pink dress - every time I dropped one, bron would throw another in and I'd make big flamboyant showbiz hand gestures - this was shown on a monitor in the empty dance studio, and the audience then came through a door into the tiny dressing room, which i'd set up with pretty things (makeup, hair clips, drawing from ari, card from mum) on the classic mirrored lights dressing table, and was out the back in my jeans and enid's horse t-shirt, trying again and again to get more and more hoops to stay up around my hips. the crit for that one was good, people got the sense of being invited into a personal space, and having been given permission to be voyeurs by watching me on the screen, felt that it was still a privilege to be watching the sweat and tears in the backstage area. two of the dancers said they really empathised with me, having the experience of trying to get a particular physical trick over and over themselves. I was really happy that the sense of intimacy and vulnerability came across.

so that was the birth of my new career as a hoop artiste!
then led to directing a fabulously obscure movement piece with 8 dancers for the final days presentations - ohmigod it had contact improv, interperative dance and impulse work - don't know what came over me. trying to articulate an idea about the way people connect or stay on separate paths, which didn't quite work but it was a good excercise for me in directing. really enjoyed playing with a whole new form to explore ideas, based on movement and not text or sound. all part of the grand plan to direct a theatrical specatacular on 12 bridges in 5 contintents sometime in the next 2 years. threes anna promised to give some mentoring advice on the process, and I've worked out a rough idea based on macabre/grotesque images for the world under the bridges, and aerial tricks with projections for the parts taking place in the cables above them. it's all very european.

steve, elka and I made a fantastic rave party happen on friday night - it was called 'blue light rave 2005' and we took it out to the streets of adelaide, filming mtv style vox-pops with passing kids and convenience store owners - asking them what dance styles they'd expect to see at a blue light rave (luke from cherry bomb said 'scrabble' and someone else 13-15 year old dance steps) - then asked if they'd come to a free pole dancing workshop, which people were very excited about.

so for our presentation, we set up 3 video projectors and lots of speakers in the experimental theatre space (black box) and showed 5 minute of the interviews, then steve led the pole dancing workshop - it was amazing, all the artists and facilitators got totally into it, we gave them a chopstick each to simulate the pole, and they kept doing the routine with each other until we told them to stop - then played pumping house music for an hour and everyone danced wildly. fabulous. dance activism at it's very best!

so, it's been a completely transformative experience, on some very profound level, which I really wasn't expecting. feel that I've understood some lifelong patterns, and can step back from them now and not be driven to repeat those particular energy flows. hope to notice and neutralise them next time and get on with having fun.

have been getting up an hour earlier going for a walk every day for the last week - amazing how much it energises me, and already feel fitter and more alive and confident.

Friday, July 29, 2005

3:50 PM
Posted by jodi rose

notes from hoop performance

personal, practising internal space
attempting to master tricks for different body parts
moment - being in the moment
start terrible, get better
movement and stillness
getting back into my body - regardless of shape or size
being comfortable in skin
confidence
art is easy - committing to a simple process and maintaining it
intimacy - breaking through surface tension between people
reveal layer of self - break through again - pull apart - drawn together
tension and release

statements about being an artist from weekend australian review
projection on wall - with text
like kinesiology testing - fail/succeed for each muscle/limb
fish bowl space? audience on balcony and narrow corridor -
or big rehearsal room
you only see fragments of me
conjecture, story, rumour, myth, misinformation

Discussion with Derek

new routine - get up an hour earlier
throw on comfy shoes, clothes, brush teeth, drink cool glass water - and walk for an hour - don't think about anything - keep walking
come home, eat weetbix with soymilk, fruit.

commit to simple process. continuing

process - humour, sadness, poignant
where do you start - with learning hoops? what are the steps?
play to a cliche - 1930's czech display
dexterity and beauty, patterns

discussion with Threes Anna

what do you want to tell?
I am vulnerable?
I am beautiful?
what is the core?

peep show - voyeur
vulnerability
you have nothing to hide
revealed but secret
vulnerability revealed
window opens/closes - woman inside can't see audience
black out windows - only see eyes
corridor dark, room light
row seated & standing
vulnerable/revealed

breaking through layers of intimacy - pull back - move towards
practice for an hour in the mirror - until you find something and think - THIS I WANT NO-ONE TO SEE - then it needs to go somewhere.
building up arc to make it presentable

not peep show - more performing/practice to camera, with audience passing by in corridor. still screened from them being in the space with me - why do I always need to be behind glass? experience of depression - feeling behind glass, cut off from the world. clumsy, working on a new skill but definitely not mistress of it. yet.
joining the hoop troupe when I get home. fabulous fun.

what are you saying?

I am strong but I am fragile
I wish to hide but must reveal myself
I am part of my artistic process

aesthetic - 30's cabaret artiste - internal sense of self
white wig, figure hugging dress, sparkling jewels, lipstick 30's kiss curls

play with drama of rehearsing in private space, going on show
how do you end it? walk away... - or walk onstage to finish - lights on, curtain up, bow, audience applause.

girl on the bridge - vanessa paradis - knife throwers target - sense of going deeper into the danger of self - depths that you can potentially get lost or drown in.

how do you bring yourself back from the edge?
what are the paths you need to take to maintain sanity?
to function in the world?

how do you let go of everything that keeps you solid and stable, and come back from the experience? what is the bridge between those worlds?

I feel like crying writing this - do I break down in tears - because I can't do it? or because it reveals me as being too vulnerable?

is there a moment that lets the audience IN?
pull myself together, and go onstage.
little cabaret stage set up, with curtains and lights.
finding a process a simple routine and sticking to it
seeing beyond the facade, seeing the cracks - leave the audience with sense of vulnerability and sadness - the fragility of what keeps us together is the same thing that separates us.

don't be afraid to go deeper.

Friday, July 22, 2005

5:04 PM
Posted by jodi rose

ah yes the non stop fun continues. out late last night at lotus lounge for drinks to farewell juliane from anat - had a great boogie to monskie mouse playing trashy 80's greats, drank red wine out in the cold full moon until 1am. woke up at 7.30 and went for my new daily walk, photographed the art on street lights - the ones made from flat concrete with rusty iron edging, they look amazing. lots of graf, some very lovely ceramic tile prints - airplanes and telegraph wires... part of the next project for saturdays showing.
have managed to infiltrate tps with dance activism, after my hooping escapade am now completely inspired and ridiculous. due back downstairs any minute to help set up the blue light rave - out on the streets interviewing the kids about it this morning - and had my first directorial rehearsal for the dance piece I'm devising with a bunch of wonderful physical performers. we have flashing wristbands for the rave, and an opening night party at cherry bomb afterwards to chill out (although we've been going there all week, apparently it wasn't officially open yet) - life doesn't get much better, unpredicable as events are on the world stage - on our stage it's 'art camp'.

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

12:44 PM
Posted by jodi rose

a quick update from inside the maelstrom of time place space.
it's a lab, a workshop, an artists boot camp.
I've been learning hoop tricks - seriously - for my solo performance on thursday. 'out of my comfort zone' well and truly!!
it's fun and makes me giggle, which let's face it, working with sound rarely does. a whole other kettle of string. ball of worms. box of fish.
mixing it all up - threes anna challenged me on the first night to go 'off track' - don't make it about your big project, she said, leave that behind and challenge yourself. It's an incredible relief not to have conversations about bridges ALL the time - they still sneak in now and then, but I'm really enjoying having the focus on taking very small steps in other directions. We had the insane boot camp last week, with a new task every 24 hours, different parameters, working in small groups to make a performance the next day. intense and stressful, challenging but ultimately satisfying - and having the space now to work on ideas alone and gently find out way into our own collaborations feels like a release.
the weekend featuresd a trip to mclaren valley for wine and cheese tasting - very delicious, 13 of us bundled into the tarago and jason's car he drove up from tasmania - made it to 5 boutique wineries before we were all too sloshed. brought home some chevre and another very stinky goats cheese, waiting for the progressive dinner at our 12 apartments in the saville park suites to break it out with the dessert wine.
in breaking news, only minutes ago I opened an email with acceptance for a festival in november, this creates a little more structure in my obsessive lifestyle/art plan - I was really hoping to be part of this particular gig and now just need to find a funky animation person.
ahhh back to the to-do-lists soon but for this week, they have lost their tyrannical grip on me. ok, stories to write, ideas to develop.

Thursday, July 7, 2005

12:53 PM
Posted by jodi rose

just stumbled across this lovely piece about westgate bridge
'motion sculpture for the masses'

http://www.sleepybrain.net/bridge1.html#armour

"The Bridge is preoccupied art with singular purpose. It subordinates human scale, sings with the power and majesty of electrical motors, pulleys - petrol combustion equations. With the fine tuning of engines magnified by huge volumes traversing tarmac, there is music, poetry, rhythm.

Stand beneath and listen: there is life, encased in metal. In the newborn phase of the 21st century, human evolution sheds its penultimate stage: onwards, then, to posthuman intelligence, armoured, body-enhanced, supermodified."

Thursday, July 7, 2005

12:44 PM
Posted by jodi rose

re-establishing connection with my shadowy academic double life.
also re-engaging with social conscience and political agenda and background. nothing like growing up with a socialist anarchist single mother who dedicates her life to writing unfashionable political theatre to keep you honest :)

thinking about the anti-corporate protests going on around the G8, the alternative ideas mostly seem self-evidently sensible and reasonable to me - I just really don't understand capitalism. the yes men made a brilliant appearance on 'enough rope' with denton, talking about their impersonations of wto officers when they had been invited to speak at various events - said they expected to get hauled out by security, making preposterous suggestions in their speeches about free market democracy and dissolving the wto - they started at outrageous and went off the deeo end, but they just couldn't go far enough. very entertaining and concise - denton asked how they make a living, if they do this full-time - one said, well I've been wearing the same pants for a week, and live very frugally - and sometimes we get mistaken for art. and funded.
http://www.theyesmen.org/

also reading 'continental drifts' by nicholas fraser, engaging and thought provoking essays about the new europe - started with 'paris in the abstract', where he talks about the hero of Camus' The Fall, bing 'a left bank lawyer, a proponent of good causes who came to distrust his altruistic impulses. He decided that he believed in nothing. Instead of keeping quiet about his loss of belief he wishes to impose it on the rest of the world. So he hung out in bars, in search of strangers, whome he attempted to convert to nihilism.'
then goes on to talk about how the characters failure to save a woman who jumps off a bridge is the pivotal moment in the book and provides a reason for his inherent sense of guilt.

well, I'm happy to hang out on bridges and try to convert strangers to finding joy and wonder and delight in the world meaning whatever they would like it to mean. being kind to each other and gentle with yourself, I find is often a good start. smiling at strangers on the street - I know I've had times where a random smile from someone walking past is the only thing that's kept me going that day. never underestimate the power of small decisions and momentary actions - they all add up.

that said, also identified with graham greene as quoted by clive james, again on denton. he talked about the 'chip of ice in the writers heart' (or artists) where everything is material. you can be sobbing, heartfelt, in genuine misery - and think - hey, this is great, I can use this.
it plays havoc with your love life, said clive, if you have one.
indeed. good to hear the concept being discussed, on ocassion I have wondered if it was some fatal flaw in me, that even being completely over sensitive and incredibly attuned to emotional nuances, I can also be scarily pragmatic and detached. glad to know it's just part of being an artist.

in my current fascination with memoir writing - preparation for those 4 months in slovakia - I've just started reading 'stargazing' about a young man working in lighthouses for 6 months in 1973. intriguing so far.

back out into the world now, got some art to check out at acca and ngv.

Thursday, July 7, 2005

12:25 PM
Posted by jodi rose

This is my ideal international bridge team for optimum creative production and efficiency!

in no particular order...

model maker
midi instrument design guru
ambisonics/surround sound mixer
travel agent
3G Data multiple location streaming specialist
microphony recording expert
spectrum analyst
costume designer
editor
web designer
graphic designer
animator
video artists
documentary film maker
photographer
engineer
accountant
massuese
admin assistant
finanancial planner
fundraiser
personal trainer/yoga teacher
macrobiotic chef

some of the positions are already filled, but if you're a model maker, animator or fund raiser and would like to work on some crazy bridge projects, please feel free to get in touch :)

Monday, July 4, 2005

2:19 AM
Posted by jodi rose

it's all about the gaps... without them we don't need no bridges.

a few things I forgot before

words of wisdom from afar: "more distortion and less echo I say for your performance. It's time to kill that bridge hippy persona and add the grit and grain. People died making those bridges you know!"
indeed.

I'm very frustrated by the limitations of playing live using the laptop.
can't wait to get my bridge model happening so I can smash it up afterwards... yes and then set fire to it, as suggested by tom the coolest lighting guy ever - thanks for making it so dim, felt very glamorous!

ahh obsession
what would life be without it?!!?!?!

Monday, July 4, 2005

1:51 AM
Posted by jodi rose

thank god that's over.
can stay up late, watch strange french films on abc tv, sleep in, not worry about trying to make a bridge or play one. yay!
had to finally give in gracefully and accept that I wasn't going to make the bridge materially this time - so made it in sound and air.
need to recruit onto the team, a couple of model builders - maybe thomas in cardboard, and some architecture students for their skills - as well as the midi guru, surround sound experts and various other key bridge team operatives. at least I have a man on the golden gate lined up now, for the global symphony. very exciting.

this weekends festival is over, had a strange time last night - getting sick and very stressed, so was cranky and not really into talking - had great rant with the san fran boys, and lucas showed me his broken crystal as I'd missed the performance, wandering through the city with sumu and steph - also a great adventure, ran into alessio at troika, eventually found the supper inn and I couldn't eat there - too anxious.

apparently the evening ended with a techno party, I like the public office, but the vibe wasn't jumping when i was there - or maybe it was my vile mood.

tonight's concert sounded amazing - 10 channel 16 speaker diffusion system, with lovely subtle work from phil smartzis and alan lamb - almost blew the roof off at one point, and a poetic piece from myles and lawrence, kooky sounds by the french dudes (eric said hello from michael rusenberg and jacob k - last I heard he was off dancing tango in argentina, almost managed to get a tango going tonight, but then he claimed not to dance - I don't know, you're french I said, of course you dance!) from icehockey to extended brass instruments.

but I couldn't really enjoy any of them being so wracked with anxiety about my performance - didn't ever relax, it was horrific. terrifying.
had lots of fun playing with the diffusion system during sound check, and mapped out an intricate and complex conceptual arc for the sounds, but then all I could hear was the blood pounding in my head, and felt that I didn't quite pull it off. got about two/thirds there, made some good transitions and nice layers - but didn't quite make it to the level I was hoping for. oh well. sumu and steph said there were moments, and other people also complimentary but not effusive. - later discussions had comments that it was fragmented, and noticeable I was struggling with the technology - yet still graceful said ros. and keep doing it your own way!

maybe that's melbourne though. phil said he never gets feedback after gigs here - except on rare occasions like last week.
Everyone did a good job organising and running the festival, thanks for inviting me, and all your hard work and energy!
My one question was: where is the afterparty?
guess I've been spoiled by all these fabulous helsinki festivals, where you have a warm-up party, a couple of artist dinners, an after party at every event, and then a sauna chill-out.... those Finns really know how to have a good time. ah well, back to normality I guess. or as normal as life gets when you're a nomadic sonic artstar.

found to my surprise I was one of the headline acts, 'high profile international artist' - did I already mention that? it amuses me.
and the girls at the merch desk said lots of people came up and were saying (about my cd) buy this one, it's great. Nice to have unprovoked feedback like that. one person said they could hear that I was building a bridge in the performance tonight - but didn't get the full subtleties of the cables going wild, then collapsing under the bridge into a dark underworld, and being pulled back up into the light by angels with bells. yes a bridge with bells on. and it was a love song.

Monday, July 4, 2005

1:31 AM
Posted by jodi rose

a week of good satisfying conversation
I love that about melbourne
with emer and dom and nic at bimbo deluxe
talking about being asked my ideologie
and how the great thing about bridge project
is that it can mean anything to anyone
... what's your ideology, they said to say next time
going for world peace and an end to poverty

later that week, again in bimbo (they have great $4 pizza)
talking with jonathon about the close friends I have who work
to actually make the world a better place
and how indulgent my life seems in comparison
- a common theme I know but recurring concern -
and we decided that artists provide inspiration for everyone
he said it's great for the rest of us, to know that artists are out there
doing exactly what you want to do - and maybe that is enough
owen and steve from wetgate at the public office last night
offering suggestions for bridge related tangents
invite people to send recordings and video - I like that
and apparently bill fontana has been trying for years to get a sound bridge wired up on the golden gate, meetings with cisco, the bridge authority, whole area is networked but bypasses the bridge itself
and various other setbacks - his work is more ambient sound, not the cables/ good to have a point of difference from all the other bridge sound geeks out there :)
I've been dreaming of a more domestic life, baking, sewing - decided that's my new hobby - it's small scale, immediate, tactile and productive - you get stuff to eat and wear. bridget said, you don't seem conflicted at all though, really accepting where you are.
talking about never really being unpacked - always on the road
intro to liquid architecture concert tonight nat said he listed me as being from 'the world' as there didn't seem to be one place that was home. someone else asked where is home? it's where I'm standing.
or where you feel at home - that would be helsinki, berlin.... and melbourne. lovely being back here, run into someone interesting every time I leave the house. it's very soothing to feel so connected.