A Digital Love Language Share
Today I’m sharing an expression of a digital love language inspired by a moment in class🌤 I experienced the sun setting and the sky changing color in a different time zone over the course of 3 hours in the background of a peer’s zoom feed🌦 I felt such comfort seeing their sky and their weather in that little zoom rectangle even though we were physically so far apart☀️
As I began to consider the expression of a digital love language and what might that look like🌤 I decided to hand code a website that displays the weather for each of my family members across three states and two countries☀️ Or as I like to think of it my family weather report🌤
I wont be sharing the actual website coded for my family because it's for my family🌤 but instead here is a weather report for digital love languages and you🌦
Weather has always been a focal point for my family🌤 Growing up my grandfather tuned into the weather report with devotion, everyday while we sat down for dinner at 6:30pm sharp🌤 It has been almost 20 years since we’ve all lived in the same city, sharing a meal and collectively listening to the weather report 🌦 Now, when we call each other across states and oceans, questions about the local weather always come up🌦 Not because its a form of small talk to fill auditory space, but because its away to feel the air around each other, a connection to ground ourselves in🌤
Or as Roni Horn put it:
"Everyone has a story about the weather. This may be the single thing each of us holds in common. And though the weather varies greatly from here to there, it is, ultimately, one weather that we share."
Before beginning Digital Love Languages in June, I was quite anxious about how I would foster connections between my fellow peers in a virtual learning environment☀️ I tried to visualize how we’d connect, bordered by pixels and learning through binary 1’s & 0’s and electrical signals🌦 How would we project and overlap from these zoom rectangles as we learn and teach together🌤 But now as we wrap up our time together in this space I have found solace and renewed excitement in communicating beyond commercially designed and coded platforms🌦 To forge digital paths to and for each other through pixels, and binary and electrical signals🌦
I leave you with this collage of thanks to Melanie, Adina, Max, Amber, and everyone in digital love languages for spending the past 10 weeks together and helping me grow.