DON’T I KNOW US FROM SOMEWHERE?
Several years ago, I had a delightful exchange with a woman in a dance class at Maple Street. She looked so familiar to me — this striking redhead with a great smile who really knew how to shake her groove thing. And I could tell that I seemed familiar to her, too, because we kept catching each other’s eyes with a glimmer of mutual recognition as we moved across the floor. At the end of the class, when we had a chance to speak, I fumbled my words a little.
What I meant to ask was, “Do I know you?” But what came out was: “Don’t we know us?”
We chuckled about the question, and figured out quickly that we’d worked together on a show over a decade earlier.
That reunion was about eight years ago, so Erin and I now have been friends for almost twenty years (!!). We finally had the chance to perform together again in The Addams Family musical this year, which was tremendous fun for so many reasons, not the least of which was spending time with Erin.
She reminded me of that dance class and my slip of the tongue: “How do we know us?”
It’s an awkward way to put it. Then again, it’s kind of an awesome question.
Because it makes me wonder about the different ways we identify ourselves and each other, forging connections and meanings. How our individual identities get co-created in a context of togetherness and then every togetherness, in turn, is characterized by the aggregate of all its contributors. Knowing myself by how I know us, and vice versa.
Author T. F. Hodge said, “What surrounds us is what is within us.” The Talmud says, “We do not see things as they are; we see them as we are.”
Self-hood emerges continuously, evolving in all directions.
The image above is by Ukrainian photoshop artist Alexey Kondakov. He extracts figures from Renaissance paintings and resituates them in contemporary urban settings, where they appear to take on new meanings and/or reassert their original spirit. I really like it as another illustration of how context can both illuminate and transform the meaning and even the existence of things and people.
Here are a few more of Kondakov’s pieces:
I’m digging this as a reflection for my birthday week. Remembering that each of us reflects the world, and vice versa. I reflect you, and contrariwise. God shining back and forth, together.
I can’t wait to be with you on Sunday, May 4, at 10:00am. With special music by our Bosque CSL Choir! XO, Drew
©2025 Drew Groves
