Monday, August 11, 2008
Community
Stories are the language of community -- Dean Ornish, Forward to Rachel Remen's Kitchen Table Wisdom
This idea tripped along in my head this morning. Stories as a reflection of community.
Well, my community is alive and mostly well.
Janel is telling the story of her pregnancy in her blog. By weekly updates, she reflects on her metamorphasis from a young women tuned to her generation to a child-centered mother. She used to fill her days with work she enjoyed amid the world of books and sales teams of friends and co-workers. Now her world revolves around two entities, Jillian and Phillip in an environment she nourishes with diligence and extreme care. She seems almost like some sort of intellgent cocoon -- able to walk and think and feel, but limited to abiding where it is safe from wind and rain.
She has chosen a lettuce green and white theme for her nursery - Babylicious. Pieces are coming together and in her planning she is counting the weeks like a professional project manager -- soon she will no longer be mobile, consigned to bed rest as the final weeks approach for her project rocket liftoff.
She performs her nest building now, fresh paint, closets arranged, cribs constructed all ruffled and flounced. Upstairs and downstairs lairs for storing, feeding and changing pushing the cat and perhaps a little of the Russell-ness of the house to the background.
August is important to her. It is the last month she can walk about, shop for a few hours or pick up any little dropped thing. She no longer sees her feet and won't until November. September is final adjustments month. Little things nipped and tucked until it all fits. Maternity clothes will be used up. October is the waiting month, quiet growth, anticipation and wide, soft cotton lounging shifts wrapped around her.
November will explode on the scene with incisions and the yowling of demanding babes. Healing and cuddling. Swaddling and bundling of warm slurping and wiggling. Twenty fingers and toes, knees and noses. Pink and blue knitted caps, yellow and green booties and pure white onesies.
Meanwhile, Janel tells the story in her blog and the language of my community is spoken clearly.
On another face of my community Diana blogs of the beginning of her search for her first house. Days of swealtering in her duplex rental in Yonkers has convinced her that she needs her own place where air-conditioning can be relied on in the summer. Where they don't have to look forward to escape, but can be comfortable at home. Where their books can be uncrated along with their boxed kitchen utensils. Where their cats can roam the whole house and not hover in the corners of the cool bathroom or entry hall.
I want to tell her all the stories of my learned experience of fifty years of house owning. What to do, what not to do and why. Mistakes made, oversights regretted, disasters not forestalled in time. I want to give her all my hard earned metes and bounds. My survey of wisdom with all the precision of 20-20 hindsight.
I watch for her blog updates -- they are the language of my community. I want to know what she is learning and deciding.
One blog is silent - the hope is dimmed that spawned it so passionately this early spring. Michael's blog on Obama's web site is quiet. The stories from this part of my community is damped down, watching and waiting. Michael was swept up in the passion of the race between Barack and Hillary for the Democratic nomination for president. In Obama he saw the potential for dramatic change from politics as usual. In his mind Obama was 'grassroots' and Hillary was the "sameo, sameo political party machine".
Michael passionately wrote of his hopes and dreams for more respect for founding freedoms, worlds of caring hands and warm hearts and a love of science, imagination and simple solutions.
In June, Michael saw Obama compromise in a Senate vote that sent shivers of forboding down his back and chilled him to the bone. Obama compromised on a fundamental precept -- wrong doers should not be allowed to get away with breaking the law.
Michael put his quill down and put his hands in his lap. He watches and does not share his dreams and stories in his blog any more. A voice in my community is quiet. The language is a little muted now. It is sad for me.
Other voices I hear in my community are
xkcd
penny arcade
wwdn In Exile
Birdie's New Mexico Time Machine
Dick Cavett (in NYTimes)
Russell Crowe - the Prose and the Passion
I also follow and trust the AP and the CBS news wires. I refuse to read Fox and not much of USA Today. TV news is for the weather reports only.
I am missing Jim McKay as I watch the Beijing Olympics on NBC, Bob Costas is doing his best.
This idea tripped along in my head this morning. Stories as a reflection of community.
Well, my community is alive and mostly well.
Janel is telling the story of her pregnancy in her blog. By weekly updates, she reflects on her metamorphasis from a young women tuned to her generation to a child-centered mother. She used to fill her days with work she enjoyed amid the world of books and sales teams of friends and co-workers. Now her world revolves around two entities, Jillian and Phillip in an environment she nourishes with diligence and extreme care. She seems almost like some sort of intellgent cocoon -- able to walk and think and feel, but limited to abiding where it is safe from wind and rain.
She has chosen a lettuce green and white theme for her nursery - Babylicious. Pieces are coming together and in her planning she is counting the weeks like a professional project manager -- soon she will no longer be mobile, consigned to bed rest as the final weeks approach for her project rocket liftoff.
She performs her nest building now, fresh paint, closets arranged, cribs constructed all ruffled and flounced. Upstairs and downstairs lairs for storing, feeding and changing pushing the cat and perhaps a little of the Russell-ness of the house to the background.
August is important to her. It is the last month she can walk about, shop for a few hours or pick up any little dropped thing. She no longer sees her feet and won't until November. September is final adjustments month. Little things nipped and tucked until it all fits. Maternity clothes will be used up. October is the waiting month, quiet growth, anticipation and wide, soft cotton lounging shifts wrapped around her.
November will explode on the scene with incisions and the yowling of demanding babes. Healing and cuddling. Swaddling and bundling of warm slurping and wiggling. Twenty fingers and toes, knees and noses. Pink and blue knitted caps, yellow and green booties and pure white onesies.
Meanwhile, Janel tells the story in her blog and the language of my community is spoken clearly.
On another face of my community Diana blogs of the beginning of her search for her first house. Days of swealtering in her duplex rental in Yonkers has convinced her that she needs her own place where air-conditioning can be relied on in the summer. Where they don't have to look forward to escape, but can be comfortable at home. Where their books can be uncrated along with their boxed kitchen utensils. Where their cats can roam the whole house and not hover in the corners of the cool bathroom or entry hall.
I want to tell her all the stories of my learned experience of fifty years of house owning. What to do, what not to do and why. Mistakes made, oversights regretted, disasters not forestalled in time. I want to give her all my hard earned metes and bounds. My survey of wisdom with all the precision of 20-20 hindsight.
I watch for her blog updates -- they are the language of my community. I want to know what she is learning and deciding.
One blog is silent - the hope is dimmed that spawned it so passionately this early spring. Michael's blog on Obama's web site is quiet. The stories from this part of my community is damped down, watching and waiting. Michael was swept up in the passion of the race between Barack and Hillary for the Democratic nomination for president. In Obama he saw the potential for dramatic change from politics as usual. In his mind Obama was 'grassroots' and Hillary was the "sameo, sameo political party machine".
Michael passionately wrote of his hopes and dreams for more respect for founding freedoms, worlds of caring hands and warm hearts and a love of science, imagination and simple solutions.
In June, Michael saw Obama compromise in a Senate vote that sent shivers of forboding down his back and chilled him to the bone. Obama compromised on a fundamental precept -- wrong doers should not be allowed to get away with breaking the law.
Michael put his quill down and put his hands in his lap. He watches and does not share his dreams and stories in his blog any more. A voice in my community is quiet. The language is a little muted now. It is sad for me.
Other voices I hear in my community are
xkcd
penny arcade
wwdn In Exile
Birdie's New Mexico Time Machine
Dick Cavett (in NYTimes)
Russell Crowe - the Prose and the Passion
I also follow and trust the AP and the CBS news wires. I refuse to read Fox and not much of USA Today. TV news is for the weather reports only.
I am missing Jim McKay as I watch the Beijing Olympics on NBC, Bob Costas is doing his best.
# posted by Dornar @ 11:53 AM 
