Category Archives: Community/Interconnectedness

At a candid moment last month, in the thick of Hope and Kristian’s wedding celebrations, I blurted out: “I fear for my country.” And got a huge laugh from the crowd. A relieved sort of laugh. A “I am so glad you said that!” sort of laugh.

Sad, huh?

But yesterday, my fears were somewhat allayed at the opening ceremony for Honk! (Which always makes me cry.)

If, indeed, we are collectively witnessing “The American Autumn,” if, AT LAST, Americans are taking it to the streets to protest endless war and environmental degradation and “Wall Street,”* may American Autumn look and sound and feel like Honk:

In outlandish costume (as a guy on the 87 bus observed yesterday: “Once a year, Somerville looks like San Francisco!”). With brass bands. With much laughter and good humor and dancing. But (and this is what I so powerfully sensed at the opening ceremony) underneath all that joy pulses an absolute, steely, fundamental and profound understanding that we, the people, shall overcome.

So imagine my joy when later, hundreds of us got to sing an upbeat, peppy rendition of  “We shall overcome”  accompanied by trombones and cymbals! Definitely uplifting.

* An all-purpose term meaning, to me, any and all heinous ways $ is mismanaged in this country. Like Bank of America now requiring a monthly fee from its debit card customers. (Although, technically, B of A ain’t ON Wall Street, I’m guessing)

During a quiet moment this reflective weekend, had the opportunity to list in my journal how, ten years later, September 11, 2001 has forever changed me. Last night I added one more. I offer this brief list NOT because it’s unique. Just the opposite. At whatever latitude and longitude, let us mourn. Together.

How My Life Is Different Post 9/11:

1. Fear and sadness are the fabric of my life.

2. I know more about Islam and day-to-day Middle-Eastern life.

3. I know I am being watched/under surveillance.

4. TWO wars daily break my heart.

5. I better know the answer to “Why do they hate us so?”

And finally, # 6, which came to me after reading Thomas Friedman’s piece in the NYT and while walking on a broken, trash-strewn sidewalk along Somerville Avenue—and after seeing “Higher Ground”:

“This is it.” Broken, neglected infrastructure, the hopelessness and futility and rage expressed by this crap is How It Is, How It Will Be, I fear.

(Unless, of course, you and I . . . )

The day before Hurricane Irene was due, had been searching online for info I could relate to, i.e., simply gave just the facts, ma’am: no hysteria, no hype, no overblown videos. And discovered the National Weather Service’s no nonsense site.

Of course, the first thing the site wanted to know was: Where are you? So I typed in my zip code.

I’ve bookmarked that site; now, every morning I read “7-Day Forecast for Latitude, 42.39 degrees N and Longitude, 71.09 degrees W.” (AKA 02143. AKA Somerville, MA.)

So here’s an emerging spiritual exercise: To first take a few moments every morning to envision this precious planet, its globe-ness, its continents and seas, and then to take time to imagine carefully calibrated lines from earth’s poles and from above and below its middle and to feel where I am in relation to the equator and Greenwich, England.

“Ahh,” I think. “So that’s where I am!”

But there’s more to that Ahh than a mental acknowledgement of longitude and latitude, more to that profound sense of place. Here’s what else I contemplate while sipping my coffee: I’m—and you’re and we’re—in It and of It and It. The Soup. The Ball o’ Wax. The Whole Enchilada. Om/Aum. Within God. Deeply interconnected.

And whatever we do to the earth and to one another we do to ourselves and to The Divine.

(This Mindful stuff is exhausting!)

One of the things I love to do on the 4th—don’t know why, exactly—is to read the Declaration of Independence on The Boston Globe‘s editorial page. (Yup; they print it every year.) No longer a home subscriber (Yup; finally gave up), it took me a little while to actually find it online but eventually, there it was. (Yup; reading that lofty document online does give me that same mysterious thrill!)

Like other online articles, The Globe’s annual Independence Day offering included the opportunity for comments. And although an inward voice screamed, “Don’t do it, Patricia!” I did read a few. Not surprisingly, given the deep, deep divisions in the good ol’ US of A right now, many nasty, “vitriolic” comments were there to marvel over. (Apparently, Patriotism really means Freedom to Own Guns. I had no idea!)

One commenter, wasting a perfectly lovely summer day to sit at his/her computer arguing with another commenter at some length, used the words “Mirror-logic.” Which, I take it to mean, interpreting the world—or, in this case, an historical document—from one’s own (limited/flawed, all too human. . . ) perspective.

Loathe to waste a perfectly lovely summer morning sitting at my computer AND eager to address my residual fearfulness re riding my bike in the city (what better opportunity to get my bike mojo working than on a holiday when all the traffic’s on the Cape?!), I strapped on my helmut  and took to the bike lane on Somerville Avenue. And eventually to the bike path out of Davis Square. Final destination: Spy Pond.

Seeing my Somerville-Cambridge-Arlington world from my cushy seat ( a HUGE consideration when I’d bought my Trek Allant for my 65th birthday), I saw connections and patterns and features I would otherwise never be able to see.  How the wetlands near Alewife T Station relate to nearby ponds, for example. Or how a couple of co-housing developments celebrate their  bike path access.

And, I gotta say,  I thought I saw The Beginnings of Something Working Right. That in the current course of human events, when dependence on the automobile MUST be severed,  we are declaring our, well, not independence, but Getting Ready.

Huzzah!

Just got back from a wonderful family visit to Brooklyn where I spent sweet time with my grandson and grand-daughter and their terrific parents. And experienced my first Mermaid Parade at Coney Island.

Coney Island, classic Last Stop on a Subway Line—with attendant amusement park and miles of beach to attract weekend ridership—vigorously holds on to its tawdry past. Not with its crumbling buildings, freak show/side show attractions, cheap thrills, overpriced souvenirs, faded, iconic billboards , incessant noise. And, just to be clear, I’m not talking about the bare-breastiness of the Mermaid Parade. All these are, arguably, charming!

I’m talkin’ trash. On the face of it, aside from Nathan’s Famous, Coney Island’s business owners seem to have made a conscious decision: We will not provide trash cans. (Kinda skimped on adequate rest rooms, too.)

God knows, if you’re walking around holding an empty Styrofoam cup for blocks and blocks, you begin to really wonder: Should I have ordered that pistachio-chocolate swirl softserv in the first place? (Answer: maybe I should have ordered a cone!) God knows, if you’re seated in the outdoor seating area right next to a Nathan’s Famous trashcan so can observe how often a sweaty employee empties the thing, one’s awareness of the sheer magnitude of  disposable crap intensifies.

[BTW: Spectacle Island, one of Boston Harbor’s islands, has a no trash can policy: Visitors have to remove whatever crap they’d brought or bought from the island. AND THERE ARE SIGNS EXPLAINING THIS!]

But, hey. While I’m always overwhelmed by the Big Apple’s muchness, I am also always impressed by its Let’s Make This City Work energy. If NYC kids are currently reading comics starring The Green Lantern, comics which tout (hector?) responsible electricity usage—and they are—surely another Super Hero spouting Disposable! Recyclable! Bring Your Own Utensils! is already in the works.

Went to my 45th Wheelock College reunion last weekend—an abbreviated, spend a few hours on Saturday version.

Beside the fact that I live just miles from my alma mater (so going on a Duck Tour is not going to be the highlight of my reunion), my reasons for this abbreviated version are complicated and not worth going into here.

What, courtesy of the Internet, I would like to share is this:

Spending time listening to other women talk about their lives is fascinating. (Until it becomes so overwhelming that I gratefully hop on the T and go home!)

This year, I had two opportunities to listen: my class’s traditional, post-luncheon get-together, when the twenty or so of us go around the circle and share. And I also attended a workshop on “Transitions,” open to anyone attending her respective reunion, so the chance to listen to younger and older women was especially rich.

Because I want to respect privacy and confidentiality, I’m going to be a little elliptical: One woman talked about an incredibly difficult situation in her family and then said, in effect: “I, of course, would not have wished for this nightmare. But this horror has allowed me to be fully alive;  a fully present participant in what is really the human condition.”

See why I went?

Yesterday, Susan Robbins, founder and Artistic Director of Libana, sent her e-mail contacts a link to a TED talk she described as “strangely moving.”

Strangely, huh?

Although we all know TED talks are not brief I watched it immediately.

And, yes, it was moving and yes, Susan Robbins, who is ALL about the power of music to build community and the synergy created when voices join one another would find a “virtual choir” strange.

Irony: an excellent jump-off for a blog.

Maybe I’ll begin by describing that first heart-sinking moment at a Midsummer Sing. Susan had already led the twenty-five or so women in the circle through some community-building exercises, we’ve warmed our voices and now, it’s time to sing. Something filigreed, hauntingly beautiful—perhaps in Hebrew or French or Swahili. A complex round, perhaps. Or in four-part, intriguingly discordant harmony.

Yeah, right!

But we do it. Together. And it’s incredible.

I won’t belabor this. You get the point. Amazing things happen in community.

Conversely, icky things happen when we’re not face to face. Twice, this week, I’ve been called on e-mails their receivers found hurtful.

Ouch.

Being in the same room: vital.

And staying in the same room: Critical. How resilient is a community of men and women who have never met, never grappled with the hard stuff, never spent the time learning one another’s back story? Not very, I’m thinking. It ain’t fun to hang in there when the people you’re trying to build community with are pissed or annoying and what you really want to do is leave, dramatically slamming the door behind you. (Just to be clear: If your Fight or Flight alert is activated, get the hell out of there!) But I’m pretty sure that when Marin Luther King talked about “beloved community,” his back story was all about the squabbles, pettiness, shouting matches, etc. he’d encountered—and endured—among his associates, parishes, and his own family.

I’ll close with this: face time might mean praying together. Intentionally taking the time to collectively acknowledge Something/mystery/The inexplicable which operates when two or more are gathered.

Just sayin’.

Today on the Green Line, a young man ignored both a very pregnant woman and a mildly aging woman (me) and remained in his seat—furiously texting. After a couple of stops, the pregnant woman found a seat but immediately offered it to me! I declined. At the next stop, I got a seat next to Texting Lout. His proximity stirred up some very angry feelings and, oh no, I found myself dangerously close to giving TL a piece of my (judgmental, entitled) mind.

But my renewed resolve to not contribute to the hatred of the world quashed those feelings; instead,  I closed my eyes and prayed for him.

And instantly was reminded of what a dear friend once said of the deeply troubled, abusive men she counsels. “They’re repeating what had been done to them,” she’d noted. So instead of condemning TL, I began wondering what his young life had been about. (Did I mention that he was African American? Is that important?)

Know what? Eyes closed, seated on that rattling, squealing crowded car, I experienced such calm, such peace, such compassion for him.

It’s working.

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. Van Gogh

Today I put an e-mail re Porchfest in my musician neighbor John’s mailbox.

Like many  greater-Bostonians, I received countless e-mails these past few days encouraging me to show up at the State House today in solidarity with the workers of Michigan—and, of course, in solidarity with that populist spirit so abundantly manifested all over the world right now.

I’d already made plans to meet up with a group of Somerville Quakers at 2:00 to bowl and eat pizza (?!) so had decided not to go. After all, just how much fun can an aging Quake expect to squeeze into one afternoon, huh? Besides: Gotta save my strength for candlepins and building community, I told myself.

But the voices of Lucy Stone and Alice Stone Blackwell and Julia Ward Howe and their compatriots, those indefatigable abolitionist/suffragette souls I’ve been reading about lately , urged me to “show up.” (Some might view my willingness to listen to those long-gone voices as guilt—certainly bizarre. Trust me, after you’ve read Alice Stone Blackwell’s biography of her mother, Lucy Stone, you’ll totally get it.)

So I did. But had a disquieting experience.

Just as I arrived at the rally, the Second Line Social Aid Pleasure Society Brass Band—from Cambridge—began playing. And not just any song. They played the song I danced to the night Obama was elected.

And for the rest of the time I was there, I couldn’t shake my sadness. How well I remember my euphoria that night (the linked video shows me ever so briefly with a shit-eating grin). Remembering that dancing, joyful me let me truly grasp how disappointed I am, today.

But, hey. Lucy et al had these moments, too, right?

Today’s musing/sheer fantasy is courtesy of two, seemingly random but inexorably-linked-in-mysterious-ways-that-we’ll- never-understand phenomena:

1. Oil is now  $100 a barrel.

2. The snow has melted sufficiently so that the city crap of the past three months is now blatantly, festeringly obvious.

So, today, walking to Inman Square and over and beside and around trash, trash, trash, I remembered during the Great Leap Forward (1958 – 1963) when the Chinese people were exhorted to build backyard furnaces to create steel for all the new and modern Leaps Forward that required steel. (This homemade steel turned out to be pretty shoddy goods. For many reasons, including bad luck with the weather, the GLF was a bust.) And I looked at all the trash in Union Square and along Webster Avenue, 95% of which was made of plastic—a petroleum product, soon to become, perhaps, prohibitively expensive? And fantasized about some miracle technology that could transform all the coffee cup lids and Pepsi caps and plastic bags and the rest of that crap into STUFF WE ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY NEED!

Wild, huh? And here’s where it gets even crazier: Since We the People would be collecting this stuff to be  somehow transformed, WE get to say how this suddenly valuable commodity is used!

Okay, that’s nuts. But here’s a little something re trash that’s true and profound: Now that the Egyptian people feel that their country is theirs, trash has become a political statement. When the Egyptian people felt hopeless, they threw their crap on the streets.With a growing, collective sense of ownership and empowerment, the Egyptian people are reminding one another to clean up their mess.

Hmm.