If binge watching tv had been a thing when I was a child I would have cycled through Mister Rogers Neighborhood over and over again. My shorter self thought there was nothing better. I loved the music, crafts, how things get made segments, all the characters human and puppet. There was no flaw. I also loved Mister Rogers because he loved everybody and he said we could too. In my imagination that meant all those little kids in the international outfits could be my friends. It was a very exciting prospect.
I kept waiting for those international friendship moments to begin happening, but Western Maryland isn’t terribly cosmopolitan. On our regular visits to D.C. to soak up some culture I would look around and hope for some obvious foreigners and some pretext for talking to them. I never had any good luck. Lately my luck has been better. The Detroit area has healthy communities of several kinds, and I’ve found my own way of saying hello.
Loving everybody is harder than I thought. Things that are all nailed down in the community I call home are up in the air for others. Things I didn’t think I could tolerate, must be tolerated if I’m going to make friends. And I do want to make friends. It’s worth the strain. Hopefully I’ll get better at it as I practice. Mister Rogers said I could do it.
No comments:
Post a Comment