Seeing Ourselves Through the Eyes of Others

     We live in a community rich with opportunities to meet people from other countries. They are always interesting, no matter their background or station in life. I learn a surprising amount about us as U.S. citizens just through their questions about our culture and language. I also learn about myself by comparing their challenges to my own. It can be very humbling. Some of these visitors are college or language students, others are professors, researchers or professionals in various disciplines, still others are immigrants with little education but are willing to work hard. Many are parents sharing the experience of a new country with their children. Most arrived by plane or bus, often with multiple connections. Still others walked through deserts or came to our country in tiny boats, risking their lives.

How Do You Say...?
     Kids are like little sponges soaking up language and culture with  enviable speed and agility. When I'm in countries where I don't know the language, I find myself envying small children  who speak and comprehend far better than I. Oh, to have their open minds and no fear of making a fool of myself.  It's puzzling that our education system doesn't require foreign languages in kindergarten and primary grades when our brains are most receptive to learning them.
     We don't consider how difficult the English language is until we have to explain it to speakers of other languages. So many everyday sayings ("That really threw me for a loop," or, "He won hands down," for example) are tricky to explain. Or why words that are spelled differently and have different meanings sound the same (their/there/they're, would/wood, cents/sense/scents, etc.). Or, why does English have so many silent letters in words (pneumonia, bright, could, etc.)?

     In this era of increasing isolationism, led by some politicians and political candidates, I am reminded how surprising and revealing encounters with certain foreigners have been in my own life. More than once, I've had to rethink my attitude.
     Once was when I met someone from a country I tended to view negatively for political reasons. While I still have negative views about the politics of that country, I learned a lot from her in long conversations over coffee or on walks. Probably without realizing it,she taught me to see her country's citizens as individuals who don't always agree with their governments, just as we don't ours. We may still disagree on certain things, but we both learned from each other. In other instances, I've met people from places I've never visited and probably never will. Still, learning about everyday lives and traditions and tasting some of their foods reveals a richness that gives depth to the name of the place every time I hear it now.

  Stranger in a Strange Land
     When I was young, I had the good fortune to live and work in a few other countries. It taught me how one's senses are heightened in such situations and foreigners notice things that  locals often take for granted. When I meet foreigners now I have a greater appreciation for how exhausting it is to be somewhere where a different language is spoken. You are constantly trying to understand or search for the correct words and, initially, translate everything in your head. It's such a relief when you can finally understand without having to go through the translating step. I was often struck by how kind people were to me when I was the foreigner and how patient they were when I was learning their language. Eventually, I realized how they were correcting my errors without being obvious., or making me feel like a fool.
     Everyday experiences like shopping for food in stores that don't carry what you're used to preparing, or getting places without your own car or knowing the language well enough to find your way or ask for help can be overwhelming. Finding an apartment or house is all the more difficult, yet critical. The kindness of just one stranger who helps in a seemingly small way (to them), such as giving directions or explaining how to prepare an unfamiliar food, can impact one's perception of an entire place. Subtle discrimination can have equally profound effects.

     Travel abroad exposes us to negative experiences, as well. We can find ourselves very much in the minority, the seemingly stupid one because we don't speak the language, or we may face prejudice because of what we look like or the place we represent in the eyes of someone who doesn't know much about our country, except from negative headlines. Or, someone judges you by the negative experience they've had with others "like you." I've been in that situation too. It's extremely uncomfortable, both frustrating and instructive. Sometimes you can change someone's attitude, if they will talk with you. Others you can't.

     You don't have to travel elsewhere to get that jolt of fresh perspective. We can get it by opening our doors and minds to new people and experiences, be they people from other countries or states, or even people we with work with or live near, but don't know yet.
     Just in writing this, I realize  I still have much to learn about foreigners in my own community, and even some neighbors. And now I know just who I'm going to challenge myself to get to know better.
    
    
     

Facing Accumulations

     Over the Thanksgiving weekend I started what I thought would be a fairly quick project: clearing some of the blackberries inching towards the road and our driveway. In recent months they were not just blocking the view of the road, the tangled wall of accumulated vines was creating a downright claustrophobic, almost forbidding entrance: a narrow cave of green walls.
     The thing is, once you start such a project, where does it end? In truth, it doesn't. Once blackberries get started, only Mother Nature can tame them and even she gets frustrated with the little buggers.

     At the same time I began hacking into the  enormous accumulation of vines, my youngest sister was 1400 miles away at our mother's  home in Colorado, delving into a houseful of "stuff" accumulated over four generations. Our 90-year-old Mom is planning to move from the house she grew up in to a nearby retirement center. Between childhood and moving back into that house, she lived in four other countries and three states, accumulating many things along the way. She, my sister, and later our other sister, spent days going through drawers, closets, cupboards--entire rooms--of things that seemed important to keep, at least at one time, by someone in the family.

It's hard to throw away electrical items (vacuums, radios, kitchen appliances) that at one time could be fixed. Alas, those days are gone but the habit of saving for repair is a hard one to break. 'Surely we'll find someone to do it,' is a persistent voice. It's even harder to dispose of items that have sentimental value, but you have no room for and rarely see anyway, except in fits of cleaning out every year or three.
      "After I'm gone, someone will have to clean all that stuff out of the basement," Mom has joked for years. Her mother had said the exact same thing. We chuckled, in the smug comfort that the next generation would have to do it. Well, she's not gone, it's time to do it and she gets to help.

     So, as I clipped long- neglected vines three times my height, my family burrowed into decades of family

Bundled blackberries

history.  The vines stretched high into trees; I yanked them down, folded them, thick end first, into 8-12-inch pieces (Yes, it requires thick gloves.Very thick gloves.), then wrapped them with the supple tendril at the end and tossed them in piles. My sisters and Mom yanked open stuck drawers and doors, pulling out long-forgotten items, deciding what to do and forming their piles. My piles were to compost or burn, theirs were to keep, sell, donate or send to the landfill. What would Mom want to take with her? Who in the family would like to have this?  While they were indoors and I was outdoors in the cold (actually good having several layers of clothing when dealing with nasty thorns), I think their job was more exhausting. Studies have shown that the more decisions we have to make in a day, even simple ones, the more our mental and physical strength is zapped.

One side done, the other awaits.

 

It seemed the more berry vines I cut back, the more I discovered behind them , but I did make progress and it's satisfying to see the road now - at least on one side of the drive. The other side awaits...

 
 
       My sister returned to her home in California, understandably exhausted and feeling both accomplishment at what got done and the momentum she leaves behind for the others, but frustration that she didn't get as much done as she'd intended. I hope in a few days she can look back and realize she broke through a wall of sorts - the kind created by the mental block of where to start, what to do with all of the stuff we've poked through over the decades, able then to walk away and say, "later." How do you sort and dispose of the little things that mark lives and time, people and events, feelings and relationships? There's so much history in that house, meaningful to only our family. Bits of it will disperse into the homes of other family members, bringing memories of times and people with them. Others will go into the homes of strangers. But, soon enough, they'll be gone through again as each family moves.

     Like the blackberry vines that never give up, their roots traveling unseen, underground, the "stuff" in our lives vine through numerous homes and generations, each with a memory, each with a story we want to remember.