come on - who ever thought that the usa could get involved in conflict in afghanistan and come out a winner? the soviets couldn't do it against us-trained afghans & we can't do it either.
fighting in afghanistan cost the soviets their union. what will it cost us? inquiring minds...
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
Is my hometown a welcoming place?
reposted from my blog, mise-en-place...
there's been some discussion on facebook about whether or not my hometown is a welcoming place or one where people are challenged to show basic affection.
i, for one, believe that being comfortable showing affection could be heavily influenced by your family of origin, your circle of friends. i, for one, am basically a moving hug, so i tend to be an affection magnet. my husband, who did not grow up in my hometown, thinks that it's an unusually affectionate place (with himself as a very happy recipient). but he remembers when we were first married & i lectured him on "inappropriate public displays of affection" ~ he nipped that lecture in the bud for all time, pointing out, "but if people never see married couples showing affection to each other, how are they going to know it's possible?" so, i guess i did have some issues in an unremembered past.
the fact of the matter is that my hometown has an unusual challenge, one that i wonder if folks there realize. almost all of the people within the little borough are either related to each other in some way OR work together OR serve the same uses together. the vast majority of them go to the same church, have their kids in the same private schools, read the same small community newsletter so are aware of the important events on the horizon as well as shared knowledge of the town/family histories of the past. that is A LOT of connection.
it's hard to know what water is when you live in a fishbowl. my guess is that most people in my little hometown have no idea how invisible a person can feel who is NOT on the general radar. it's chilly.
my guess is that a vast majority of people back in my hometown would think of me as someone who's on the radar of a lot of people.
how wrong they would be.
see, i'm a odd duck in my hometown - in spite of coming from a family that's been members of our church for many generations, i haven't a single relative living nearby. not one. no cousins, no aunts or uncles, not even a brother or sister. very unusual. a horrific family tragedy when i was very young left me dependent on an older sister for a sense of connection rather than developing circles of friends in elementary school, high school & college. and i don't work in the church or schools that serve as the central pole and the bearing walls of our community. small wonder that - for decades - i felt like an UN.
mind you, i've fully experienced my community at its best & brightest. when john & i were married, i was utterly FLOORED by the number of people who attended. (it's a community tradition to issue a general invitation to one & all, in addition to specifically invited guests, so you never know how many to expect) it sure looked to john like we were on a lot of radars. what he didn't realize - what I didn't realize - was that how i'd approached our wedding had put us on a lot of radars. see, i'd treated it all as an opportunity for a BIG celebration, going way beyond the two of us getting hitched. we went to every one of that summer's many weddings, beaming & happy as can be. we had an open house for my very popular brother & his equally popular wife & their family, who'd trekked all the way from australia. relatives flocked to the wedding from missouri & california & nevada. looking back, it was sort of hard NOT to have us on your radar. as it turned out, the entire weekend, especially our day of days, was a veritable festival of connection.
i've also experienced my hometown at its, well... more detached. my mother died twelve years after our wedding. my closest friends were utterly FLOORED at how few people showed up to offer condolences. although her death, in the wee small hours of the morning, was announced at sunday church services, only five people stopped by. five. we just weren't on the radar of most folks. to most people, we were, at best, good acquaintances; if they'd thought about it at all, my guess is that they'd think we'd be inundated by others, that they wouldn't be missed. not being related or directly connected packs a powerful punch.
another challenging aspect to my hometown is how often people there use words, terms or phrases that others don't understand. very isolating. i recall my sister-in-law bemoaning not understanding arcane terms that many of us bandied about with the attitude that of course others would know them.
"for example," she asked, "what's this thing you call 'proprium'?"
feeling very sure of myself, i quickly answered, "that's easy - it's similar to the sensual!"
"but what," she shot back, "is the SENSUAL?"
and that is how, in my late teens, i realized how easy it was to use language that made total sense within my faith but left everyone else scratching their heads in confusion.
i've had people tell me that while things might have been that way, it's not a problem these days ~ we've become more embracing of the new, the different, the unconnected.
would that were true. i know from a variety of people - visitors to the church & town, new members of our faith, parents with children in the school - that many of them still feel a sense of isolation, of otherness. i saw it unfolding right before my very eyes last spring...
john & i had headed over to the cathedral, about to take set out on the annual walk that started out at one church & ended up - after a beautiful walk through the woods - with breakfast at another. we noticed a young couple there; we didn't recognize them, but it was pretty obvious they were waiting for the walk to begin. no one a single soul went up to talk to them. i waited & waited & waited for others to introduce themselves, to strike up a conversation. it never happened. john & i finally walked over.
turned out that although her family were church members from way back, she'd had very little contact with the community. her parents lived in nyc & she lived near woodstock; they were in town making arrangements for their september wedding in our beautiful cathedral - it was delightful to hear their plans, how almost everyone would be from out of state, staying in philadelphia, and their various events (rehearsal dinner, after-wedding toasts, pre-reception soiree & reception/dancing) would held in each of four very special locations, the very first wedding i've ever heard of that did that! more amazing than their plans was the fact that, while we introduced the couple to many people on the walk, both to & from breakfast, not a single person came up to them to initiate introductions.
going back to the fact that a fish doesn't understand what water is, i think it is an ingrained challenge in my hometown for people to understand that not everyone experiences people rallying around to lend support or to share joys, not everyone gets the friend-made quilt when the baby is born or the wedding is celebrated, not everyone has a family with whom to celebrate holidays. (we are blessed to have friends who adopt us on christmas eve & christmas day, at easter & thanksgiving. others are not so lucky.)
am going to be thinking on this for a while.
there's been some discussion on facebook about whether or not my hometown is a welcoming place or one where people are challenged to show basic affection.
i, for one, believe that being comfortable showing affection could be heavily influenced by your family of origin, your circle of friends. i, for one, am basically a moving hug, so i tend to be an affection magnet. my husband, who did not grow up in my hometown, thinks that it's an unusually affectionate place (with himself as a very happy recipient). but he remembers when we were first married & i lectured him on "inappropriate public displays of affection" ~ he nipped that lecture in the bud for all time, pointing out, "but if people never see married couples showing affection to each other, how are they going to know it's possible?" so, i guess i did have some issues in an unremembered past.
the fact of the matter is that my hometown has an unusual challenge, one that i wonder if folks there realize. almost all of the people within the little borough are either related to each other in some way OR work together OR serve the same uses together. the vast majority of them go to the same church, have their kids in the same private schools, read the same small community newsletter so are aware of the important events on the horizon as well as shared knowledge of the town/family histories of the past. that is A LOT of connection.
it's hard to know what water is when you live in a fishbowl. my guess is that most people in my little hometown have no idea how invisible a person can feel who is NOT on the general radar. it's chilly.
my guess is that a vast majority of people back in my hometown would think of me as someone who's on the radar of a lot of people.
how wrong they would be.
see, i'm a odd duck in my hometown - in spite of coming from a family that's been members of our church for many generations, i haven't a single relative living nearby. not one. no cousins, no aunts or uncles, not even a brother or sister. very unusual. a horrific family tragedy when i was very young left me dependent on an older sister for a sense of connection rather than developing circles of friends in elementary school, high school & college. and i don't work in the church or schools that serve as the central pole and the bearing walls of our community. small wonder that - for decades - i felt like an UN.
mind you, i've fully experienced my community at its best & brightest. when john & i were married, i was utterly FLOORED by the number of people who attended. (it's a community tradition to issue a general invitation to one & all, in addition to specifically invited guests, so you never know how many to expect) it sure looked to john like we were on a lot of radars. what he didn't realize - what I didn't realize - was that how i'd approached our wedding had put us on a lot of radars. see, i'd treated it all as an opportunity for a BIG celebration, going way beyond the two of us getting hitched. we went to every one of that summer's many weddings, beaming & happy as can be. we had an open house for my very popular brother & his equally popular wife & their family, who'd trekked all the way from australia. relatives flocked to the wedding from missouri & california & nevada. looking back, it was sort of hard NOT to have us on your radar. as it turned out, the entire weekend, especially our day of days, was a veritable festival of connection.
i've also experienced my hometown at its, well... more detached. my mother died twelve years after our wedding. my closest friends were utterly FLOORED at how few people showed up to offer condolences. although her death, in the wee small hours of the morning, was announced at sunday church services, only five people stopped by. five. we just weren't on the radar of most folks. to most people, we were, at best, good acquaintances; if they'd thought about it at all, my guess is that they'd think we'd be inundated by others, that they wouldn't be missed. not being related or directly connected packs a powerful punch.
another challenging aspect to my hometown is how often people there use words, terms or phrases that others don't understand. very isolating. i recall my sister-in-law bemoaning not understanding arcane terms that many of us bandied about with the attitude that of course others would know them.
"for example," she asked, "what's this thing you call 'proprium'?"
feeling very sure of myself, i quickly answered, "that's easy - it's similar to the sensual!"
"but what," she shot back, "is the SENSUAL?"
and that is how, in my late teens, i realized how easy it was to use language that made total sense within my faith but left everyone else scratching their heads in confusion.
i've had people tell me that while things might have been that way, it's not a problem these days ~ we've become more embracing of the new, the different, the unconnected.
would that were true. i know from a variety of people - visitors to the church & town, new members of our faith, parents with children in the school - that many of them still feel a sense of isolation, of otherness. i saw it unfolding right before my very eyes last spring...
john & i had headed over to the cathedral, about to take set out on the annual walk that started out at one church & ended up - after a beautiful walk through the woods - with breakfast at another. we noticed a young couple there; we didn't recognize them, but it was pretty obvious they were waiting for the walk to begin. no one a single soul went up to talk to them. i waited & waited & waited for others to introduce themselves, to strike up a conversation. it never happened. john & i finally walked over.
turned out that although her family were church members from way back, she'd had very little contact with the community. her parents lived in nyc & she lived near woodstock; they were in town making arrangements for their september wedding in our beautiful cathedral - it was delightful to hear their plans, how almost everyone would be from out of state, staying in philadelphia, and their various events (rehearsal dinner, after-wedding toasts, pre-reception soiree & reception/dancing) would held in each of four very special locations, the very first wedding i've ever heard of that did that! more amazing than their plans was the fact that, while we introduced the couple to many people on the walk, both to & from breakfast, not a single person came up to them to initiate introductions.
going back to the fact that a fish doesn't understand what water is, i think it is an ingrained challenge in my hometown for people to understand that not everyone experiences people rallying around to lend support or to share joys, not everyone gets the friend-made quilt when the baby is born or the wedding is celebrated, not everyone has a family with whom to celebrate holidays. (we are blessed to have friends who adopt us on christmas eve & christmas day, at easter & thanksgiving. others are not so lucky.)
am going to be thinking on this for a while.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)