The prologue of Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers is about a town in Pennsylvania that was settled by a group of Italians in the late 19th century and became famous for its initially inexplicable incredibly low incidence of heart disease - or any diseases, actually. Intensive studies showed that these people were dying of old age in spite of outwardly appearing very much like the people in their neighboring towns. Overweight, eating US style pizza, etc. was the norm so no differences in eating habits could explain it. After taking blood tests and EKG's of basically the entire town, and doing door-to-door interviews, the conclusion was that they are "outliers" (outside of the statistical group) because of their TOWN.
Huh? Their TOWN? Yeah. Not the water, not the location, but the town itself. Turns out that these people had recreated their original town in Italy and remained a very close knit group, entirely self-supporting, often with three generations in one house, and also quite egalitarian and calm. In short, everything a suburb is not. Everything most towns are not.
So what do I take from this? That it does indeed take a whole damn village in order to sustain us and there are far too few left. Maybe Roseto, PA is in fact the only one left. So if our country is going down the tubes, with many of us feeling cut off, recreating Roseto sounds like a better option than Prozac.
I was thinking of Mother and all the stories she "had to" tell us about this person and that person, most of whom we didn't know. See? Mom was maintaining her community! And "community" is what Mom and Dad tried so hard to maintain in our family and really, everywhere they went. They even put "community" in First Community Village, I believe! They showed interest, and acted on it, with not only the other residents, but even those who were their caregivers. Mother kept track of everyone and introduced people to each other to enrich their lives, and Daddy kept track of all the people on the dementia ward, checking on them regularly, especially young Paulina who he knew was their "baby." How could she not, dementia or not, have fallen in love with him? Not many residents there are upgraded to private rooms when they are on Medicaid, I'm sure, and yet both of our parents were and I'm sure that they were so special not just for who they were, but what they encouraged and added to the whole place. Yes, a sense of community.
And I miss them terribly. I feel like I am going to drown in my sorrow of lack of community and family -- yes, the family I sometimes had to go to the basement to escape for a little while occasionally, but the family that was always THERE. It smacks me really hard how ludicrous it is that our fractured families all live in different houses creating so much more work, so much more debt, utility use and bills, and just general waste, not to mention the loads we each carry without each other there to help out when we need it.
The stupid incredible financial crisis is horrible, but what is really shaking us at our roots is the lack of community. This I believe.
1 comment:
This made me cry because I often feel the same way. Even with Zach, I know intuitively that he would fare much better if he weren't living on his own, isolated from his family. I'm sure that's why people with mental illness do much better when they are left intact with their villages. Insane or not, they are valued and protected. And I still remember the sorrow in Daddy's voice when I told him Steve and I were divorcing. He asked where everyone would live, and when I listed all of the "apartments," he just said, with a heavy heart, "So you'll be in an apartment, Steve will be in an apartment, Beth will be in an apartment, and Zach will be in an apartment." The way he said it cut my heart out. I heard the truth I didn't want to hear, all in that one statement.
And we call ourselves an advanced civilization. :(
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