The Human Desire for Connection

Hello Everyone(:

Ok, first of all, a huge thank you to everyone who has supported the project. We are over 100% funded, and are therefore completely set to begin buckling down in the city and finding people to interview. It's crazy and wonderful and we are so incredible thankful! So, thank you again, from the bottom of both of our hearts.

I (Patty) have arrived in the city and am getting all settled in to the apartment. Feeling a little tired from all the travel (and excited lack of sleep) but I thought I'd put something up on the blog because conking out for a nap. All this traveling and meeting people and explaining everything in two languages and walking around to different places leaves you kind of exhausted :) But I'm loving it here already and so excited to see where the project continues to lead!


After a long train ride, I was welcomed by the woman who helped set up the apartment situation for Kristen and myself here in the city. It was so nice to have a semi-familiar face at the train station and to help with all the basics of figuring out how to get from one place to another. The apartment is beautiful and so spacious! It's incredible. I never would have expected something so nice, and am beyond grateful to be able to live here for the next almost-month. It's a crazy blessing, and I am so grateful. After settling in a bit, I rushed off to the Vienna Coffee House conversation evening I had signed up for (check out more information here: http://spaceandplace.at/vienna-coffeehouse-conversations/ ). The basic idea of the event is to show up, be paired up with somebody random, and then to have an honest and stimulating conversation about a wide variety of topics. The questions range from "How have you rebelled throughout your life?" to "What does the world need to become a better place? What do you intend to do about it?"

The point is to move beyond the idle chitchat that usually takes place when you meet someone new, and actually have real discussions and conversations, using stories as examples from ones own life. I met a really interesting engineer, and we talked about many different topics, including the Vulnerability and Connection project. His name is Christian, and he volunteered to be in our film, so Kristen and I will be meeting up with him again in a few weeks for the filming! He also got me thinking a bit more about what questions we are going to ask during our interviews, and what my exact definition of vulnerability is (something I've been formulating for the last few weeks). It was a fun start to our project, and I'm really glad I went! The hosts of the event suggested we read "And Intimate History of Humanity" in order to get a historical overview of the interaction of women and men throughout the ages.

Then today I went to church with Becca, our semi-host (the one from the train station, remember?) :)
It was wonderful. There's something really comforting about coming home to a church, and hearing about the faith that I believe in, but that is practiced throughout the world. After church, a few of Becca's friends were going to lunch and invited me along! We enjoyed our afternoon immensely, eating ice cream afterwards and going to the park, but eventually I was too tired and headed back to the apartment. I had some really interesting conversations and met some really cool people, though. One might even be in the film, so more on that later. However, whenever I was asked to explain the project, people seemed incredibly interested. The pull towards other people, and to be engaged in community, is one that seems to fascinate most of the people I meet. Maybe that is the kind of person you voluntarily would join such an outing. Or maybe it is as I believe, and we are built with an innate need for community and can only be really happy when sharing our lives with other people.

"Happiness is only real when shared," said Christopher McCandless (from John Krakauer's Into The Wild). I fully agree. Today, I had the joy of sharing in conversation with a group of people, from different nationalities, backgrounds, and ages. And yes, I would describe the feeling I felt as happiness. No, these people do not know me as my closest friends do (and for this reason I love my community at home), but they mirrored what I have seen to be true in my own life: that being together with those that you love and care for is one of the best gifts in the world and of life.

Letting Friendships Happen

Hi everyone!

Greetings from Rome. My family is currently on vacation but I got a chance to take some time and work on prep for the project. Kristen and I are sending out e-mails to Austrian churches and alumni that might be interested in working with us. However, I'm also trying to be very careful, obviously, so that Kristen and I are completely safe. We don't want anything crazy or dangerous to happen while we're trying to make our film/take our photos. Well, I take that back. Crazy, as in adventuresome, is definitely ok by me (: 

I received an e-mail from a pastor who suggested that the best way to meet people in the community was to actually come to the services and go out to eat with them afterwards (something that commonly just happens spontaneously for the young adults). This makes a lot of sense to me. Meeting people via the internet can be a little bit sketchy. I think it's more important to simply meet people through encounters and I feel a lot more comfortable with this anyways. C.S. Lewis wrote that two friends are formed not by the desire to have friendship, but by looking together towards a third object of interest. In The Four Loves he wrote,  “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” I'm praying and hoping right now for many of those moments, which can only happen if I let go of my need to be "doing something" about finding people to interview right now. At the very least, I know we'll find people people that are willing to share their stories for the film!

I moved a lot as a kid, and so was forced to learn how to make friends. Ever since I can remember, I've been the girl who could make friends with anybody. There's always something interesting about every person - why would you not want to talk to them, given the chance? Not everyone will be "that" person, who you share everything with and who understands you to the core. Yet there is something unique and wonderful about connecting with people through conversation that makes me feel alive and excited. That's one of the main reasons why I've been so intrigued by the topics of vulnerability and connection. However, I've done enough moving around to know that being in a different culture adds a certain layer of difficulty in connecting with other people. 

Meeting the right people for the film will require time, and so I've decided to go for a bit longer than originally thought. I'll be heading down at the end of next week before Kristen comes down the following week. My first couple of days there will be spent by exploring the area that we'll be staying in and trying to establish myself there quickly. We are on a short time budget, you could say, so I will be spending a lot of my time out of the apartment in cafes and around the city. I'm going to observe at first, and hopefully meet some people (waiters, bakers, students, etc) simply by being present. I'll also be attending church services and events. We'll start scheduling actual interviews in the last two weeks, when we'll do the majority of our filming. 

I've started journaling more often, as well. Written accounts have a lot of power, and I really hope to be able to look at all I recorded with fond reminders of the difficulties and joys of our adventures. Writing it all down will also help organize everything once I'm putting all the film clips together for the final project. 

I'm getting so excited, I can hardly wait!

Till later,

Patty