The Inconvenience of Conversation

"If I had done everything I'm credited with, I'd be speaking to you from a laboratory jar at Harvard." Frank Sinatra (12/12/1915  05/15/1998) US singer (was married to Ava Gardner, Mia Farrow)

One of the most striking things about living in a small town is that inter-personal relationships are heightened. Accelerated even. Another quality of life related to living up here is this sense that we are all interdependent even if we can't stand one another.

Yesterday I was telling my accountant Greg that living up on Timber Mountain is like living on the set of Northern Exposure. This mountain is home to an eccentric bunch. Our likes and dislikes equal a diverse collection of folks who I believe have been thrown together by a God who has a twisted sense of humor. Whether we like it or not, our primary purpose is to provide ammusement to God.

In Pend Oreille County, we excell at this task.

Let me go further. I have one neighbor who has a glass eye, she's tough as nails, isn't too found of men and can cus a blue streak around every redneck I know. But if her temper and cussing and beligerence isn't working to her ends, I've then seen her throw down the "if-you-don't-do what-I-want-you-to-do-you're-gonna-make-me-cry" card. Seeing a woman operating a bulldozer and then threatening to cry, well something just ain't right about that.

Then there is my militia-survivalist type neighbor who serves as the watchman of the mountain. If you're on the road and he doesn't know you, better be prepared to explain why. But tell the guy you're with Tim, well that's ok. You can pass.

He, like many of my other neighbors, has made a point to let me know that he doesn't care who I sleep with. These statements always seem come out of the blue. They drop out of left field, offered by my well meaning neighbors, who just feel it needs to be said. Even if it's blurted out between acknowledging the shitty winter or wondering if the county commissioners were all breach babies.

Yet such affirmation, as much as it is supposed to be reassuring, creates the most unique opportunity for averted glances and staring at one's feet before resuming a discussion centered on whether the one world government has anything to do with falling timber prices.

I loved Northern Exposure. Yes, the show was surreal, but so is life, which made it dang realistic.

Another neighbor of mine was fond of growing pot. On everyone's land. I found my neighbor's treasured secret gardens hidden deep within my taller stands of fir and tamarak. Other neighbors found their own secret gardens. Eventually, the Sheriff visited and joined in on all the fun of finding secret gardens.

I think if one is going to survive a winter in the north country, one should be able to develop coping mechanisms of choice. After the pot was gone, the secret gardens were plowed under, and my neighbor landed on probation, she found other ways to cope. She began to ride her horse naked through the woods. Which, if you happened to witness such a thing, was not so enchanted or magical and was definately better kept a secret. Personally, I preferred her on pot.

My militia neighbor called her "Throw Mama from the Train" which is a white man's way of saying "woman who does not blend well with forest".

My accountant, who has a quaint little office in town gets the originality of the place he's recently adopted as his new hometown. "I used to love that show Northern Exposure. All those interesting characters, stuck together. Now I live there." He didn't need to finish his thought, the laughter that followed said it all.

I've lived in big cities. You know the places of which I speak. Urban landscapes that honor diversity but whose citizens at the end of the day make sure that they seperate into comfortable neighborhoods, places that best fit their definition of their own socio-economic status. There's the yuppied upper class hood and there's the gay hood. There's the been to Europe every year since birth hood and the just came once from Mexico gangster hood. There's the soon to be gentrified hood and the just-gentrified hood. For the dwindling rest of us, there's the no man's land where people who haven't made enough money yet to know where they really want to be live.

Small towns can't get away with this kind of segregation. There aren't enough of us to click our heels and form convenient and hard to access micro populations. Which means that on a regular basis we rub shoulders with and talk to people who have political view points and life experience and economic realities that do not mirror our own. I believe God likes to see us uncomfortable and to watch us squirm as we try make our way through life and try to talk to one another. The 12 disciples got pretty good at being uncomfortable and meeting people who made them question just about everything they'd formerly taken for granted. Most of the 12 disciples became saints, so I am pretty sure how God feels about this.

I think God especially finds it interesting when we talk at one another and yet we don't hear a word of what is being said back to us. This is why God is uniquely interested in hanging out with Hillary. And John McCain. And the Bush Boys. And Sean Hannity.

In this tiny little timber town, there are four or five places that if one is to go there, one must add at a least an hour to whatever amount of time the visit should normally take. If God has favorite hangouts in my small town, I believe these locations are at the top of His list. This is because whether it is at Safeway or the post office or McDonalds or the single screen movie theater, the rule is one will run into someone one knows, which requires talk. And sometimes being uncomfortable.

I call these tar ball encounters. Once you run into a tar ball encounter, the more you attempt to avoid engaging in conversation without obligation, the more stuck in dialogue you become. Lesbian's call this processing. My friend Lane and Kevin call it annoying. Lane and Kevin are busy people, they have places to go, and they do not appreciate having to wait for me while I try to extract myself from a conversation of no return. They love me enough to have worked with on me this.

We've practised cutting a conversation short. But I am prone to relapse, especially as they wait for me in the meat aisle while I learn from my neighbors which kid just came home from the service, and which daughter isn't really sure who the father is, which kid is sure he isn't the father, and which kid is no longer welcome to come home.

Kevin and I role play after each relapse. Kevin pretends to be someone I haven't seen for awhile. He approaches me near the produce department. He waves at me. "Tim! How are you?"

I'm supposed to say "Hey! It's good to see you! I wish I could talk, but Lane is waiting for me out in the car and..."

But I just can't. I love all this tar ball interaction. I love the fact that everyone knows everyone and that just by going to the post office or getting a big mac you can find out everything that is important, or that should be important.

Yesterday I had a big relapse.

I was at the post office. I know the people at the post office. They know me.

They know that if I show up in line, before my usual one-minute-to-closing time, that the world is about to end.

They know I am always late. Usually because I just ran into someone right outside the post office and that was an hour ago, and we got to talking, and I lost track of time, and now I am rushing in at one-minute-to-five and there I stand and the counter and I am covered in tar...

Yesterday I was at the post office at noon. The new Frank Sinatra stamp was just released, and to celebrate they had all this Sinatra stuff, including a CD they were selling of his greatest hits. The gray haired guy ahead of me in line was very much a fan of old blue eyes. He knew all the songs on the CD. He began to sing them for me.

He wasn't so good at carrying a tune. But he was very good at striking up a conversation with the younger guy standing behind him who I guess he assumed didn't know much about Frank. A guy might not know about Frank's stage career and his life in film, and that probably had no idea that some songs are timeless, even if the voice singing those tunes might not be.

So I got myself a free concert-Right there as I stood in line to mail out some hats. It was very uncomfortable. But I'm pretty sure that as I stood there, I could also faintly hear God humming right along with the man. I was in the presence of a disciple of Frank. Meanwhile, I believe God was adding another name to his list of saints and people who were born to help us all overcome our fear of one another.

And me?

I left the post office with only just a hint of tar.

A disciple of Frank.