1 post tagged “deference”
Culture Shock has never truly hit me in foreign countries. I've experienced the most socio-culture jarring from returning to the States, in the place that I once considered "familiar".
There is something very comfortable about your own personal history. Especially one that somehow supersedes your current feelings of success. I left Portland an accomplished student, an emboldened leader and a tenacious social activist with loads of confidence, goals and ideals. Returning I feel beaten up by my failures, way more fragile and yet far more mature than when I left (even two years ago). As I grow older, I being to recognize my previous invincibility, and take it upon myself to get back to what was good about those years.. in doing so, I've tried to rekindle connections with old friends, apologize for distance with patient, present listening, and assist my relatives while learning my own personal history.
Enter my grandmother...
... who has always proclaimed that the Sundeleafs have danger in their blood. There isn't enough time here to go into all the magnificent details about Jonna Lou.. but simply stated, she's the most charismatic, vivacious and lethal 70 year old you've ever met. She'll swear, spit, and drink; louder, bigger and greater, and then the next minute, sing the sweetest jazz melody, recite prose with an accomplished orator's ease, and bake the most delicate boysenberry pie--SO good it makes your toes curl. With her contagious laughter, irresistible stories, and cunning glances, you're sure she's been a movie star at some point in her life, or at least a part time USO act forty years ago... She tells the story of our relatives who were imprisoned in the Philippines Internment camp with tenacity and confidence. You can feel the heat of the soil and the sweat of the guards.. Soon after I've probed for details of her childhood on Friday Harbor, San Juan Islands, Washington: wearing bobby socks to all the dances, and marrying my grandfather, a man who may not have sported two left feet, but has taken to mum growing over two stepping. I sit with her in the cool sun room of her home in Milwaukie and we share family stories, or rap about the difficulty of the Friday crosswords, or that b*tch Rachel Ray (whom we both can't stand.. but secretly covet her easy, inexpensive recipes).
I have relished these unforeseen afternoons with her in light of the delayed trip, and the whole of sinking into a different personal history before I go and discover my roots in another part of the world.
Biking is also different. While I don't consider Portland to be a safer biking city, the hubris of bikers and clout they carry on the road is definitely more present here. Bikers weave, run stop signs, huddle in packs before bars, and glare at your main brand track bike with pirated spoke cards.
Just last week a bicyclist assaulted a man in a car! The man driving on a road laden with stop signs drove beside a bicyclist who proceeded to run every sign. The man, an avid bicycle rider himself, stopped the biker and told him he needed to set a better example for bike riders everywhere by obeying the traffic laws. At this point the rider became surly, and eventually rammed his bike into the mans car, threatening him.. This was hot news in Portland last week, and something not entirely unexpected.
Biker v. Driver
To own one is to Love one...
I've spent more than my welcomed time in the Ugly Mug and need to dash to Powell's to look up books on camping in Sweden but I'll probably just curl up in the Blue Room.
