Sunday, August 5, 2007

Dichotomy



Blogging being a virtual world, we can create ourselves and market our image however we want to. This is freeing from the daily life of being categorized, and itemized and being defined by clothes, hair, race, or religion. Without photographs, the people I correspond with have no race identity - and I love being about the person rather than about their antecedents. I don't relate to anyone thru religion, or age, or place of origin.
That being said, I can imagine that I would love to correspond with someone with similar cultural interests or backgrounds. Someone who knows what it is like to grow up in a Brooklyn Jewish ghetto and be transplanted to a quintessential New England town, with 3 steepled churches and a quaintness that just is overwhelming at times. Where are the sidewalks? You mean your family has been in this country for 400 years? Mine came over at the turn of the century (yes- 1900!) How do you grow up without a corner store which is also a hangout? How do kids grow up without diversity of race or religion (believe me, this was truly a white-bread town when I moved here) or economic diversity.
Being a great reader when I was young, I read all of the Lousia May Alcott books and the like. Sometimes I feel like I am living in one of those books, and also feel like an observer in my daily life. It seems so safe here, so pastoral.
I wonder if I would still have "it" to walk down the Brooklyn streets without shouting "potential victem". I may just have to try it...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

less than 6 degrees of separation here...I think

Kerstin Klein said...

:) wonderful post. you know what i´m wondering? in many, many old pictures of orthodox jewish people the women do not wear head coverings. it is such a non-disputable subject these days that when i asked a rabbi once about it he didn´t give me an answer.
when ever our family is walking on the streets we get all kinds of looks, onnly because of the head covering of my husband. and sometimes we even get bad remarks. nothing i will ever get used to.

Mim said...

Switch - sometimes it feels like 180 degrees. I feel like the anthropologist on Mars.
And, yes Ms. Snow, neither of my grandmothers wore head covering, just in temple. And boy were they religious! I feel that some people have to cling to outward signs of piety, disregarding inward purity. That is my philosophy for the day - it's as far as I can go.

Kerstin Klein said...

"I feel that some people have to cling to outward signs of piety, disregarding inward purity."
Boy, do I agree to that! 100%!

soulbrush said...

where is the purity these days?any kind? oi,vey,i must be getting old,am starting to sound like my mother!