tattoos, smoking, being on a mountain bike team, matching outfits, faith, matching neuroses, we all want to feel like we are not an island. from adolescence we have all fallen through the different social "sieves" (archaeology reference here, people) until we settle. it takes different places, things, people and timelines to find that place, and i am realizing that like the ubiquitous hermit crab, sometimes you outgrow where you belong. i do not have the patriotism of belonging to a country, or the blind faith of belonging to a religion, i had a hard time as a teenager (didnt we all?) belonging to a group of people, except i didn't, i was able to find an assortment of misshapen rocks in our sieve.
i have recently heard myself defending where i feel like i "belong", the people who make me feel like i belong as much as that is possible. from the outside we are once again a random sieve of bric-a-brac; skinny, chubby, under 5 foot, over 6'5, giant birthmarks, unaturally red lips, people who tuck their vest into their underwear, cat owners, snake breeders, tortoise owners, muslims, bahaii, unitarians, baptists, other confused "why cant we all just get along?" agnostics, atkins veterans, vegetarians, milkshake addicts, people who have never left their town, people who have constantly left and have no town, caterers, punks, goths, hipsters, photographers, designers, engineers, trust-a-farians, paycheque to paychequers, food stampers, divorcees, dominatrices, widowers, only children, twins, musicians, artists, soft druggies, kinky people, orphans, "southern living" good girls, motorcyclists, occult magicians, alcoholics, homosexuals, menopausal jewish grannies who now attend baptist churches, mattress salesmen, people who pee in the shower, people who plan their retirement at age 16. perhaps it depends on what the criteria and definition of a loser is, but i love these people, because they are all of the above, because for the most part, they are happy and content with their lot, because they bring me colouring books when i am home sick, because they will come and help me when my car breaks down in the rain and yes, not only because they "put up" with me, but because they are strange and good, decent human beings.
1 comment:
This is a very interesting moral (?) stance in relation to, or positioning toward the world - meaning, you wouldn't hear this sort of blanket acceptance of the otherwise-named (named otherwise by those same sources through which you wouldn't hear something like this because, naturally, this is not the prescribed way to view the world) - the Fuc*ed Up Folks of the world.
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