People Like Us

I recieved a note from Susan Sivitz this morning, inviting people to a meeting to discuss what makes for healthy community. In the note she says, "those of us who chose to raise our children here did so for a reason--what's yours?" And I got to thinking about decisions.

So how did we decide to move to the Sandspit? Initially we moved to Bainbridge looking for a good education for our girls. We already knew it was an island, and we have learned from experience that we like the way islanders tend to pull together.

But we also did a lot of research in advance. We learned that Bainbridge was a community that welcomed newcomers, and that was important. We learned it was a community that cares for its own and that there are lots of people who believe in working for the larger good. That's important to us as well. And we learned it was a community with lots of opportunities and respect for artists -- which would of course be important to me.

And when we started thinking about the Sandspit we learned that it's a cooperative community -- it has to be, to survive the occasional bouts of bad weather -- and at the same time these people are a group of hardy individualists (who else would have the resources to COPE with that bad weather?) Which, you know, might make us a little wacky... and explain some of our silly traditions...

So those are all values we hold and share together. And now that we're here, I love it; love drifting in and out of each other's living rooms, love watering Joanna's plants, sharing tea with Connie, chatting with Ursula and waving and being waved to as I drive out. I love that Mary was willing to watch Nemo for us, love the Fourth of July festivities, loved the engagement party for Steen and Laurence.

And all those things happen because we build trust with each other and work together. Those of us who live here share a love of this community, a worry about what will happen if the sewer means lots of new houses or a wider road and lots more traffic, just as we share a love of the water that surrounds us and a hope that the sewer will help it stay purer...

Maybe what this is really about is the decision-making process, that if we make informed decisions, keeping the value of the larger whole in mind, we are less likely to go off track? I keep thinking of what Buckminster Fuller used to say about hands, bodies, or any living system (and I think a community is a living system) -- "What you see is not a hand...It is a "pattern integrity", the universe's capability to create hands."

I would like to think that community has become a value for all of us. It's why Chris puts so much time into the sewer project -- because he wants to do what's best to preserve this community. There's a good chance that the sewer is a good thing, but who knows -- the data is still out. And the only way you can really know is to stay involved; to seek out and work for community -- because I think we all have within us the universe's capability to create community.

But the most important thing, I think, when you are part of a community and want to keep it alive, is that you need to keep the values of the community in mind and not get too caught up in your own agenda. Scientists say that when a cell loses its social identity, the resulting "blind undifferentiated cell division...can ultimately threaten the life of the larger organism -- it is what we know as cancer." I think this can be true in a community, too. Not that we all have to agree -- it's just that our disagreements need to come from our convictions about what is best for the community.

I think that's why we celebrate the Fourth in the first place -- because it's a reminder that democracy is special, and our forefathers were willing to die for the values it represents. And those reminders -- parades, patriotic songs, the flag, traditions and rituals -- are a way of keeping the democratic value system alive. You could say that those same rugged individualist forefathers broke away from THEIR community -- the British Empire. But I think the reason it worked (assuming you think America works) was because the values they fought for were good ones.

I am hoping my girls will someday be lucky enough to find communities like this, too. And that they will work to build and uphold them. Which is why I suggested to you the other day, Ali, to leave encouraging notes around for people: it's a reminder that you're all in this together, all struggling, and that what helps make things bearable when the temperature is below zero and you're far from home is that sense that you're part of a community: in this case, a community of people like you, who care about the arts, who value education, who prefer rural environments, who have some silly traditions, and who are ... well... a little wacky!

I keep thinking of that song from David Byrne's bizarre Talking Heads Movie, True Stories :

"People like us"

There's something special 'bout people like us

People like us
(Who will answer the telephone)
People like us
(Growing as big as a house)
People like us
(Gonna make it because)

We don't want freedom
We don't want justice
We just want someone to love.