http://vimeo.com/36137581
The above little blurp is primarily about Mike Miller, a Miami Heat basketball player, bred in Mitchell, SD, my hometown. In the video, Mike recalls his first NBA draft, held in Minneapolis, MN. As he talks about it, he mentions the fact that tons of people from Mitchell drove to Minnesota to support him. Throughout the video, he alludes to the community of Corn quite frequently, but as he talked about his fan base at the draft, I realized..
love is community, or the inverse, community is love.
I've been told I don't take compliments well. Generally, if someone says something nice to be, I say "Oh, I am this way because.... " or "Everything I am, I've been taught." I'm not an grateful person, but frankly, I don't think I'm deserving of any compliments. My community, though, warrants every compliment ever bestowed upon me and many many more.
My community taught me the value of carpools. My friend's mom would pick us up from school every Monday and rush us to dance class. Never did she forget to bring one of those amazing cookie, caramel, chocolate bars for us to devour on the way to our tutu session. Soccer tournaments, basketball games, everything was at least a two-family affair. Even summer vacations frequently turned into combined last name carloads.
Growing up, I had many moms and even more dads. The first time I drove was in my friend, Ashley's, mom's minivan. Sandy took us cruising around the middle school parking lot, as if we were soccer moms in training. Many moms beside my own tugged my hair into a pony tail for school pictures or picked my amazing 90s bangs to an appropriate height.
Once I started dating, boyfriends pretty easily gained the approval of my parents. However, the approval of my "other" dad's never dissipated as easily. Since my brother and sister both played hockey, I frequently doted a boyfriend to their games. As soon as our breath escaped our mouths, my poor boo would be questioned quite heavily by other hockey fanatics, generally male friend's of my father. My cheeks would blush and I'd try to fend them off, but inside, I felt cared for, protected, special.
My community taught me generosity. In 8th grade, my friend, Jenni's, sister was diagnosed with cancer. Despite our limited fundraising knowledge, my soccer team and I pulled together to organize a fundraiser for Jenni's family. At times, it seemed my soccer team's greatest concern was the color of our uniform or who was actually the best goalscorer, but as we washed cars and set out donation buckets, uniforms or goals scored were of no importance. I remember one camper that came to our carwash. My dad hovered over our 14 year old selves as we scrubbed the bugs off the well-traveled beast in his attempt to ensure we were doing an obsessively good job. The owners graciously made conversation, and when they left, they gave us a check for 300 dollars. Even though my dad hovered and we did our best karate kid carwash, we probably didn't deserve 300 dollars. The couple could have easily gotten a better carwash at a "swipe your card and drive through" carwash. However, as they parted from us, they offered justification for choosing our parking lot wash, "we wanted to do something to help."
Generous.
This wandering couple was generous. Later that day, we wrapped up our fundraiser. I handed a very literal wad of money to my Jenni's family. It totaled somewhere slightly over 1000 dollars. With the mounting medical bills, I'm sure the money did little more than make a dent. However, the generosity of others to rally behind fourteen year old girls who wanted to help a friend, did a great deal for me. It taught me trust. Trust of humanity, because humanity is generous.
Stories of my community's love will continue to transpire throughout these posts. Mitchell, SD is indescribable, it's the place I credit for much of the person I am today, it is my community.
My community is love as well as the inverse love is my community.
No comments:
Post a Comment