Familiarity

I don't think familiarity breeds contempt at all. I think it can allow comfort to take root. Finding my way in a new place, with new faces, new streets, new everything I am grateful for glimpses of the familiar... glimpses, scents, sounds, sensations.

The chapel smells like Holy Covenant UMC in Chicago -- old wood and the furnace, even in the midst of summer's relentless heat. There is a wonderful meditation space that somehow feels familiar, somehow expectant. As though the walls themselves were eager to absorb whatever you would offer up or lay down. The flower beds outside in the front -- like the flowers at the end of my Grandma B's driveway -- marigolds, almost acrid, but also unapologetic. Then, the black-eyed susans around nearly every corner. Just like those along the path to the pond in Andover, MA.

So many of the sidewalks of Dover are uneven -- made of crumbling brick, just like Belle Street, where Grandma S lived, where I spent so much time as a child. The houses lining those sidewalks feel like Lakeside OH to me -- old Victorians with porches big enough for the family and then some. Even my apartment has the feel of a summer cottage. I am remembering the year that we stayed in that tiny garage apartment a block or so from Hoover. When they opened the garage door, the whole place shook and Grandma feared there had been a freak earthquake! My landlords don't often open the garage door, but when they do it is mildly jarring, but no fault lines are involved.

Even people, perhaps especially people, are familiar. There are so many folks who remind me of others. People I dearly love. And some, maybe not so much. That whisper of remembrance when I chat with these people is very welcome. It reminds me that in time, these too will be the voices of colleagues and friends.