River Roots Redevelopment: Connected Along The Way

Selina Pedi-Smith,

Founder, Pellere Foundation

Last week, I wrote about connection. About choosing it deliberately, especially when the world feels loud and fractured.

Which is all well and good in theory.

In practice, though, I’m not going to pretend it’s easy to actually DO the things we say matter to us, whether that’s being more active, more present, or more connected. And not because we don’t care. But because…Life.

To be fair, life doesn’t usually block connection with anything dramatic. It doesn’t slam a door or issue a clear refusal. It just… keeps offering reasonable alternatives.

There’s the stack of emails that really shouldn’t wait another day. The laundry that won’t do itself. The paperwork. The meetings. The errands. The planning and organizing and doing that keep life moving. None of it feels optional in the moment. None of it feels unnecessary, because it’s not.

But before you know it, the space you meant to leave open - for conversation, for lingering, for being fully present with another human - has been filled in by perfectly reasonable, expected, necessary tasks.

But connection is necessary, too. Deeply necessary. So…how do we find the time?

I have been thinking about this a lot recently, trying to figure out how to put my plan for more connection into action. And then, as I was going through one of my usual weekly multi-tasking routines – one that includes piano lessons, coffee, groceries, and the animal shelter, a little light-bulb went off for me.

In this one particular routine, I have found a way to work connection into my busy, sometimes chaotic life. But only because it works with my busy, sometimes chaotic life. It fits in with all the responsibility and efficiency and necessity. On paper, that routine looks like a mess of obligations. Piano lessons are just piano lessons. Groceries are groceries. Volunteering is volunteering. Each one lives in its own tidy category.

But that’s not how it actually unfolds.

When one of the kiddos is in their piano lesson, the other is with me at the coffee shop. We plan the weekly meals together, and then put in a grocery order. And we talk about whatever happens to be on their mind that day. Art, Japanese mythology, politics, which chemical compounds cause what colors in plants. It can get wild. And then we switch, and it’s the other kiddo’s turn. Lately, we’ve added a couple of hours of volunteering at the animal shelter before we pick up the groceries and head home.

None of that shows up on a calendar as “connection.” There’s no box for it. No label. And yet, it’s there. Threaded through the ordinary motion of the day, not competing with responsibility but riding right alongside it.

That’s what finally clicked for me.

Connection, I think, shouldn’t be carved out of life as something separate and additional. It should be allowed to travel with it, woven into the fabric of ordinary life instead of bolted on as an extra.

So that’s my next step. Not adding more to my calendar, or trying to protect some perfectly shaped block of time that’s always one interruption away from collapsing. Just paying closer attention to where connection already fits - and letting it count.

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Rachel Brosnahan is the Community Engagement Coordinator for River Roots Redevelopment. Want to help us rethink what redevelopment can look like—together? Follow the conversation and share your thoughts with us on Facebook and LinkedIn, or reach out directly to rachel@riverrootsredevelopment.org. We’d love to hear from you!