Picture this......it's 9am, all the kids are gone and I am heading out the door. I have the official walking uniform on, the ponytail is hanging, sweats, sneakers..check....this shirt, the one in the picture, my favorite shirt,( yes I'm serious) on and the dog is on the lease.....we are walking....we are moving...blood is pumping through those veins....I'm imagining the heart getting healthier and the excess weight burning off.... I get to my mailbox, I come across a neighbor...........
"Hey", she says," I have always been meaning to ask you, where are you from?" Now, I have been living in my home for close to 12 years, and it took about 5 of them for this woman, and actually most of my neighbors to even approach me, but, because I am so open, I was a bit confused. "Where am I from?" I ask. "Yes, how did you get here"...Now I understood...."Long Island Expressway" I say, playing stupid. "No, I mean how did you get here from where you came from".... LIE is the right answer, I was born in Brooklyn, grew up and lived in Queens....but, it was time to have some fun with her.......
"Oh", I say, "well, I got here the same way lots my people get here, inner tube. The Banana Boat was so early exile......The plan was to wash up on the shores of Miami Beach, but, everyone knows I'm directionally challenged so I made a wrong turn and ended up washing up on the Long Island Shores". "I had no idea," she says to me, "it must have been grueling with the sharks and all. Was your whole family on that tube?"....This is where I lost it and couldn't stop laughing...I invite her to walk with me and we go on......
On this walk we begin to learn a little more about one another. She tells me the Island has always been her home. I am a borough girl through and through, but her home has always been lined with ocean shores and very distinct boundaries between locals such as herself and the part time residents whose physical presence is pronounced from Memorial Day to Labor day but whose power in those moments of absence are profound. She confides that when she married young she believed in forever, but after her husbands affair and subsequent divorce, she was frightened to death of the thought of being alone. She spoke lovingly of her children, and how now that they are older she enjoys a whole new kind of relationship with them. She misses having little ones.
She is starting to venture out and meet people, but in her forties, she has found she is pretty set in her ways. She is very religious, very Christian, and very critical of evolution, she believes in Intelligent Design. Needless to say, she didn't think my shirt was hilarious as I did. She is a very conservative Republican. She is against Gay Marriage, Immigration, pro choice, and is pro NRA. She hunts. She does not believe the reality of Global warming, to her it's scare tactics by liberals.
People, I live on an endless block, you'll be amazed at the things you can talk about just getting to that corner......
And still she took a walk with me knowing that I am an Obama supporting, tree hugging, animal loving, evolution believing, everything questioning, equal opportunity thumping, all embracing, Pro Choice, pro Gay Marriage, vegetarian, who not only believes in the very reality of Global Warming, but feels that we all have a responsibility to take care of our planet and be kind....We didn't yell, we didn't argue, we didn't call each other names.....She was still a mom, like me, we loved her children and finds herself struggling to let them go. She was still a woman who was mourning the loss of a marriage, the loss of an ideal, and is just beginning to allow herself to start living life again, but on her terms now, not on some fantasy of forever. She was still a woman who needed to hold onto something solid to guide her through the chaos, and that was her very conservative views, and her faith. I understood that, and could sympathize with it. We are neighbors, between 2 polar opposites, there can be a common ground.
As we were approaching our homes, suddenly she said to me, "you know who you look like? Gloria Estefan." "You think?" I say playing again..I get that often, whenever anyone asks me what my background is and I say Cuban, they always say, that's right, you look just like Gloria Estefan......"They are powerful people, the Estefan's, you know" she says to me. "They are talented and they have so many things going on. They are self made, hard workers, intelligent, totally different from the others that come over".....and there, with that sentence, you have it. I choose to find common ground to get along, and am happy that she can even recognize that there can be positive role models, but it's that token status again......and that's what's disheartening.
" I know they weren't born here like you, did they come over on an inner tube?" "No, they didn't", I reply. "Some decided to take the easy way and get here on an airplane". "Well, it was really great talking to you. I can't believe we've lived so close all these years and never really got to talking before" she says. A neighbor just then drove by and said hello, the bumper sticker that was on his car read "Obama 08, White Guilt"....and she said as he moved on "I love that bumper sticker, I have to get one. Don't you think it's great?". "As great as you think my shirt is", I say, as I turn around to walk towards my porch I say my goodbyes and move on. She says" lets go walking again soon".....I say "sure" finding common ground shifting......
I can understand different points of view, I can understand different political ideologies.
I cannot understand racism, prejudice, sexism, misogyny.....
But the common ground has to be a starting point to open conversations.........
We walk for awareness, cancer, autism, diabetes, lupus,etc..... there is always a walk....
Why not walk for understanding......maybe we do need to walk together more often.......
Maybe design a few more shirts for the occassion......"Left my Inner Tube at home"......
"Hello, my name is TOKEN"........"Be the Exception, not the Excuse"......."Common Ground is better than Under Ground"......
To be or not to be?.....what are you?.......where are you from ?.....how did you get here?.............
I ask this of myself all the time.......and then I have a drink........
I need to walk it off................
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