Something Kristen said the other started me to thinking...
In my perfect world I would have all of you guys living close by, preferably right here on this piece of ground and we could garden and cook together, sit on porches and drink coffee or around a fire talking of the deep places. Aunty Cara and I could help you raise your babies and Aunty Em could entertain them.
The moment caused me to remember how I long for that type of community and just how hard it is to find, in any form.
I have neighbors, women who I like, but there is no community. I gave up on church and finding community there, everyone had hidden agendas.
I think most of us long for community but we've become a nation of solitary people. I know for myself I just don't make the effort. I might could build relationships that would lead toward having a clan/tribe/circle of friends (whatever you want to call it)but I don't.
and then the train (of thought) went to wondering what it would be like to be a part of a tribe and how we got so far from that.
Since then I've thought about inviting my neighbors down for a "block" (in our case it would be a "half-mile stretch" party but the circle went something like this... what if they just don't like me and that's why we aren't friends or Mark and husband so and so would have nothing in common... excuses, huh? but, in the end, they are all people with family and lives and jobs and everyone is busy doing their own thing and I'm just too damn tired and lazy to care.
and now if you are wondering just what this post is about...
the moral of the story is.. oops, there isn't one.. this is just how my mind works.
circles, circles, circles...
My mind works that way to. Circles upon endless circles.
ReplyDeleteI dream of clan/group/tribe too. I thought it would be easier here, but it isn't. Everyone is so busy, and I am exhausted.
People seem so disconnected from themselves that I can't imagine them being connected to anyone else.
Priorities are skewed. We value things over relationships. It makes us too tired.
But I know this thing we are talking about has existed and still exists. We just have to find it.
I wish that the community you talk about existed. I long for it. But I do the same thing, especially where i'm living now. I don't put any effort into people other than who I work with. I'm too tired. And often people seem so fake. But maybe I just long for fast deep relationships, which I know don't exist. They take years to cultivate. And when you're in some place new, that just sucks.
ReplyDeleteI'm with ya, Aola. I agree with Sandra and Jen, too.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I trust people enough to allow myself to be in community anyway (people want your money or your power or whatever). But I still long for it. and I try to facilitate it with people I do trust though, if that makes sense (take care of each other in the big moments of life...birth, death...let a friend borrow what you have, etc.). I long for more real, honest mentoring women though. I don't have many great relationships with women--and as a married woman, it's harder to continue the good relationships I had with men before.
Anyway...yeah. :)