Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Connections in the Midst of Change
When I heard that the public school district for which I work was sponsoring a writing competition as a part of its 100-year celebration, I was eager to dust off some of my old skills and put together an entry. I though it would be a worthwhile exercise to see if I had any literary mojo left after so many years out of the writing profession, plus I’d be a good role model for the fifth graders I work with every day.
But when I learned that the theme of the entries was to be on the subject of “Change,” my enthusiasm waned a bit.
Too vague. Too overdone. Too clichéd.
Just too . . . uninspiring.
And then, there was the overriding issue that frankly, I am no great fan of change.
At the risk of sounding like a female, ever-so-slightly younger Andy Rooney, I have to say that I can be quite uncomfortable with change. I like things to stay the same. Maybe I’m just a creature of habit, but I carry a purse until the corners are scuffed and the handle is hanging by a thread. I always plant pansies in the Fall and impatiens in the Spring. I even choke up a bit as I drive a new car off the lot – the old one always looks so forlorn as it recedes in the rear view mirror.
So I knew from the get-go that writing something uplifting on the theme of “Change” would be a challenge. My husband says that I am the only person on the planet who still misses her 35mm film camera! What could I possibly have constructive to say about Change?
To help get started, I turned to the tried and true adage for all writers: Write about what you know. And it occurred to me that I live right smack dab in the middle of a community that has seen incredible change since I moved here as a child almost 50 years ago.
Most folks’ familiarity with Chapel Hill, North Carolina, begins and ends with knowing that it is home to the University of North Carolina and its NCAA Championship basketball team, the Tar Heels. They might also have heard of James Taylor, its most famous favorite son. But what they may not know is how it has been transformed over the past few decades from a quiet village with a maximum radius of less than five miles to a sprawling mini-metropolis with tentacles reaching out into three counties.
So I have been a first-hand witness to enormous changes. Some of them – like being able to get to Raleigh on the interstate in 20 minutes instead of the hour that it took on a two-lane rural route – I’ve embraced. Others, not so much.
The town of my girlhood was a vastly different place than it is today.
I’ve seen downtown shops lose customers to malls, historic homes torn down and wooded glades replaced by parking decks. Move over, Joni Mitchell – I’m right there in the Big Yellow Taxi with your old man.
Back in the day, my hometown had a unique charm. On Franklin Street, our main drag, you could walk the creaky wooden floors of the Intimate Bookshop, browse for hours and never buy a thing, step next door to Foister’s Camera Store and pick up film for your 35 mm camera, then mosey over to Danziger’s Old World Gifts for a dark chocolate bar all the way from Switzerland. It was a thoroughly satisfying way to while away a Saturday afternoon, especially if you were a teenager with a couple of bucks of babysitting money in your pocket.
But what I think really drew us to Franklin Street was the people we’d encounter – the ladies that sold flowers on the sidewalk, the proprietors of the stores that bore their names, your neighbors and friends you’d meet – the folks whose names and faces contributed so much to Chapel Hill’s sense of place.
Today, Franklin Street is mostly a collection of t-shirt shops, casual eateries and bars catering to the thousands of students living a couple of blocks away. There’s no hardware store, no clothing stores for women over the age of 25, and no place to buy a book or imported chocolate candy. I miss the diversity of the merchants and their customers, and I feel a little out of place on the sidewalk now.
And yet, I concede the years have brought many changes for the better to our community.
In 2009, on the site of the old Memorial Hospital, life-saving miracles occur daily that were unimaginable just a couple of decades ago. The ugliness of racial discrimination that persisted even after Chapel Hill elected a black mayor in the late 60s, while not totally eradicated, continues to slip further and further from our day-to-day experience. The children I teach today have immediate, ubiquitous access to information that was unheard of even when my own children were in elementary school a decade ago.
So, how to reconcile these two opposing ideas – that while we yearn for days gone by, we must accept and embrace the days that are now and those to come?
I think that it lies in understanding just what drives our nostalgia for the so-called “good old days.” I think we really yearn for that feeling of being in a place, as the old “Cheers” theme song used to celebrate, where everybody knows your name. Or, at the very least, they know your face and just a little something about you. In these times, where the world seems to moves so quickly around us, I think we need those personal connections to keep us grounded, to remind us that we are a community, and that we must rely on each other more than ever.
School, church, sports, neighborhood – those are all venues for forging those relationships. I would also submit that it’s just as important to create bonds with folks who might otherwise be off the radar – the teller at the bank, the barista at the coffee shop, the bagger at the grocery store, the teacher of your children. The people you see every day who are part of your network, your web of contacts, your world.
Furthermore, I find it supremely ironic that the phenomenon driving the most profound changes in our world today – information and communications technologies and the tools they’ve spawned – can help us to create and recreate connections with people who might otherwise not ever be a part of our lives again.
Right now, on my Facebook Friend list, are dozens of folks who were present during significant periods of my past, but whom I’d lost track of over the decades of moves, job changes and the general confusion of family life at the end of the past Millennium.
High school girlfriends I’d split many a Coke or a cigarette with. College roommates who’d seen me through breakups and put me to bed after too many beers. Co-workers who had commiserated with me over bad bosses and puny paychecks. They’re all out there – planting their gardens, watching Dancing with the Stars and sending their own children out into the world – and I’m hearing about it in real time.
It may not quite as satisfying as sharing an order of tater tots at Hector’s Hot Dogs, but it’s sure beats wondering where they’ve gotten to and whether they’re gray and chubby, too.
Change is good. And Lord knows, in this world, we need lots of it. But we also need some things to stay the same. We need that smile, that hand on the shoulder, that sincere question about the kids, the parents, the dog. And if you can’t get it face to face, that little smiley icon (colon, hyphen, parenthesis) works pretty well, too. We just need those ties that bind.
So if someone says a friendly word to you in line at the grocery store, answer them back. You’ll probably see them again next week, and the next.
And if you get “friended” by someone you remember fondly from your distant past, just say yes to that request.
You know what? You’ll feel little more connected.
And that’s a change for the better.
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