Are you there?

Connection to the now, then, and a point in time. Connection to a here, there, and a place.

After meditating on connection and its meaning, I now turn to how it lives in practice—being here now, being there then, always having been somewhere at some point in time.

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In an age of constant connection at our fingertips, your attention wanders before you notice it.

Everyday rituals slip by—the sound of the trickling coffee, the smell rising before the first sip. The crisp morning air on the way to work, the cold wind caressing your cheeks.

Precious moments go unnoticed—your child’s eyes widening as they remember once again that purple is their favourite, not pink. Their small finger curled around your wrist, warm and impossibly soft, as they seek your full attention.

You’ve spent too much time being elsewhere without realizing what you have traded it for.

Are you there?

***

Country roads,

Take me home,

to the place

I belong…

- John Denver

You first heard the song as a young child, back when it was just an easy sing-along. Its meaning surfaced only years later—after trying, again and again, to make a home in places that seemed like it could be it, but felt wrong after.

So you kept moving, farther and farther from home. You searched across the world, wandering, looking, never setting root.

And even as you went full circle and came back via all the country roads to where you came from, to mountain mama, to the rolling hills hugging your rain-drenched town, you realized it was not what you thought it was anymore.

Sometimes what you long for, when the music rolls with “to the place I belong”, isn’t a place, but a time. A feeling that once seemed whole. Or an idea that never was and never could be.

Are you still there?

***

The internet provides a constant connection to your loved ones wherever you are. It is but a ghostly connection.

You are always there. But are you?

Your first encounter with deliberate disconnection was when you hit the road for the first time.

You had long been scrolling aimlessly through Facebook feeds and tweeting your thoughts in 140 characters. Instagram was a newly discovered indie tool, and WhatsApp was a second home.

You were told there would be no running water or internet for the next two weeks on the road in Mongolia. Your eyes went wide, not for the lack of water, but the loss of connection.

Khongor Sand dune, Mongolia

After a week without a shower, you and your travel companions sighed with relief from the gushing cold water. But as you took out your phone on your return to Ulanbataar at the end of the trip, it felt heavier than you remembered.

Another time of disconnection was during your 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat. The loss of connection was surprisingly not missed by anyone.

It was liberating. It was displacing. It was also comforting. Life goes on—with or without you.

Sometimes you have to disconnect to reconnect.

You are not there. But when you are back, you will be all there.

***

Yesterday evening, someone lit a small bonfire in front of my son’s school. We had just walked the neighbourhood with lanterns in our hands for St. Martin’s day¹—children, parents, and teachers all together like little stars wandering the earth.

We halted at the fire, mid-track, marching to the Glühwein stand. It crackled in the dark, drawing us in. Even my boisterous three-year-old stood still beside me.

There’s something about fire.

Fire has gathered us time and time again—at a camp in France, by a hut in the Black Forest, on Pulau Sembilan beach in Malaysia, and in a living room in Harrismith, South Africa.

Fire soothes the way nature does. It reaches into something older—rooted in our blood, carried by those who came before us.

It grounds us. Brings us back to now.

A fire, offering safety with warmth and light, speaks in a language older than words.

We’ve always gathered around it—to celebrate, to contemplate, and to connect—as those before us did, beneath the same moon.

We were there then. We are still there.

---

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1. I hadn’t heard of Sankt Martin until moving to Germany, and only after having a child. As the story goes, on a cold night, he came across a freezing beggar, cut his cloak in half, and shared it. The gesture became legend, retold each year as children walk with lanterns.