Last evening I was invited to dinner at the home of the second student I have enthusiastically taken on through Literacy Volunteers. Her name is Nancy and she is from Mexico. She is well-educated but wants to improve her English language skills (one of the many services offered by Literacy Volunteers; it is not just teaching people to read). We met through a Spanish conversation club that I recently started attending (Friday evenings at 5pm at the Koffee Kat, open to everyone) and decided to meet so that she could practice English. She has a 6-month old baby and we meet in her home, so she doesn't have to drag the little guy out quite so much. Those of us who have or have had little ones know just what a process it can be to bring them out for any reason (especially when they are that young).
About a week ago, Nancy said that she occasionally has friends over for dinner and asked if I would like to join them the next time they did that (which was last night's little soiree). I was so appreciative of being asked and readily accepted. And I am extremely glad I did. I had a wonderful time last evening. In fact, it occurred to me, in the midst of the after-dinner conversation, how I had never felt more at ease in a group (outside of any get-togethers with family) than I did at that moment.
You see, for the majority of my life, even as a child, I always had this feeling of being out of place. In fact, I still feel it, even among the co-workers I see every day. I get the sense that I don't quite "fit in", but it never really bothered me to any great extent. If there was any time in my life that it did, it was when I was a teen and young adult. It isn't that I don't get along with others. Generally, I think that I do and that I am perceived as being easy to get along with, for the most part. (I have my moments...don't we all?) And, of course, there are some individuals I get along with better than others and those tend to be my closest friends. But, I have always seem to gravitate toward those who I perceived as being singular. That is, those who generally, for one reason or another, aren't part of the "in" crowd or mainstream. And I have done so, for as long as I can remember. I remember having a Pakistani friend while living in Mississauga, Ontario in the mid to late 70's. My mother didn't mind it, but my father wouldn't let me play with him anymore. It may have also been because he was a boy and not a girl and I remember it was right after we'd been goofing off trying to tickle each other. But at the time I was only 8 or so and sex was even entering my thoughts at that point. I never understood until a few years later, why my father had gotten bent out of shape about it. I was really angry with him and hurt at the time, because in my 8-year-old mind I just thought he didn't want me to have any friends and he was just being mean.
I truly believe that my interest in and passion for diversity stems from my mother's influence. She embraced difference much more than my father had (or does...although he has changed significantly in that over the years). I am so thankful for the openness to difference that there is in me as a result and that I did not come to be as closed-minded as my father. Though he definitely had the more dominant personality of the two, I find it curious to this day, how her quiet influence eked its way at all into the composition of my character and personality given the very strong personality of my father. I think that my "liberal" nature (as some of my co-workers like to term it pejoratively) has been an asset to me and allowed me to broaden my perspective of the world in which I exist, and that without it my life would not have the richness I feel it has acquired.
All of this passed through my mind in an instant while sitting at Nancy's kitchen table enjoying the lively conversation and reflecting on an evening that had incorporated the use of 4 different languages (English, Spanish, French and Portuguese) throughout the evening. One of our group spoke and understood little more than a few terms in anything other than English, but his disposition was interested and engaging and his inability to converse more than just slightly outside of the English language did not prohibit him from interacting significantly in the conversation. I found myself, for the greater part of the evening, enjoying just listening and taking it all in rather than speaking. (There's a reason we have TWO ears and only ONE mouth. Think about it.)
All I know is that joining that Friday night Spanish group has opened up a new horizon for me in which I see the opportunity to meet and enjoy the company of a set of people with whom I feel very at home. We talked of books, movies, travel, interesting people that we have met or known who have made an impression on our lives. I look forward to the opportunity of strengthening these new connections I have made in my life.
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