This morning, I awakened to a Facebook post from someone whom I do not know in real-time, stating that she had just been assaulted.  I messaged back, asking if she was all right, and eventually became convinced that either it was a prank, a hack, or a drunk-text.  But I spent intermittent increments of time throughout the day trying to reach someone who knew her “in real time” to see if someone could call her.

We had dozens of “friends” in common and none of them knew her — that is, in real life.

At the end of the day, a man I know whose job is private investigations reached out to her and convinced her to acknowledge that she was all right.  I don’t know what happened, but at least I know that she is safe.

The world in which we travel takes us to strange places and connections that defy old notions of relationships and human interactions.  We dance on a spider web, its gossamer strands comprised of bits, bytes, transmissions, and the occasional human touch.  I sit at my desk in the northern window of the upper half-story of an airplane bungalow in Brookside, Kansas City, Missouri, United States, and a young woman in Canada whom I met in California three weeks ago sends pictures just snapped halfway round the hemisphere.

It’s the twenty-first day of the twenty-seventh month of My Year Without Complaining.  Changes ripple out in all directions.  I stand on a plateau, a cliff, or a crossroads.  Fog surrounds me; strands of lovely music penetrate the darkness.  Life continues.