Tuesday, December 25, 2012

We do what we do because...


So, I've been away from the Bloggerhood for a while.
For one thing, I couldn't find it!
As fellow writers know, sometimes, writing is dependent on mood or a muse. 
Well, hope you'll read while I get the kinks out and work to get my thoughts back up and running.
By the way, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you. 

Conventions: Not the frenzied meetings with welcome packets and sign in sheets and name badges, but all the behaviors that surround such as well a multitude of others. Would love to hear of some of your chosen conventions - feel free to be liberal with any of your own invention.

At the university where I teach, my students were to write a paper on the origin and development of a social convention: hand shaking, table manners, greetings, keeping personal or public space, gift giving and such. We do what we have always done for different occasions. Maybe Mom told us it was "the right thing to do." 

Why, it's just how it's done in our family - always has been - I'd miss it. That's how Momma put a meal together, bless her. She mighta' complained 'bout her back, but she was proud to do it. Give her a Goody powder and a beer and she was fine.

IT may refer to pickles or no pickles in the potato salad, always served with cold ham, a relish tray and deviled eggs. 

Not to mention a coconut cake, 'nanner puddin', and sweet tea. Oh, and a congealed salad. 

What? You forgot the ham? You brought what? A chicken - rotissi...who? 

I don't give a damn who cooked it, you shoulda'. Oops, sorry 'bout the cuss word. Lord, forgive me. Have mercy, a chicken and store bought all pent up in a plastic box like such as that is a gonna' feed this brood. 

Who knows who's had they hands on it! It's just not right - why, the whole meal's just a mess now. Might as well just pitch it. Can't eat anyway. Might as well just drive down to the Shoney's on 21 and eat whatever they got (food's probably been sitting there for hours on end - somebody comes by and stirs it now and again, like that freshens it all up.  

Okay, so a little dramatic.  

IT may refer to a phrase, "Hug my neck!" Why should I hug your neck? Has anyone ever just hugged a neck? Seems difficult to hug a neck with any gusto without a strangle hold. But, I know the connotation, so I hug a neck. In like manner, we know when to do the "side hug," "full bodied hug - sincerity that," and even the timing. Guys will give each other the "time's up" with a slap on the back or a squeeze of the neck. One or two seconds past the guy hug time limit is an unspoken convention that guys just know. 

I suggest it worth thinking about, and researching some of our conventions. Do they work? What might we change? This Christmas - well, today is the official day - I paid more attention to our conventions than usual and I guess...NO, I'm sure it's because I just lost my sister to cancer's grip. Such made me really think about my purpose here, and why I do things the way I do things or speak words, or greet others, or schedule my time. 

Her disease dismissed the conventions of the season in her fading world. I made sure she had a Christmas tree weeks before, just so she wouldn't miss that; she may have missed it. I don't know how lucid she was, but probably I had to have that convention during her last days, so I had something I knew well and could count on for stability. Nothing wrong with that. Her last days and death have me thinking. Thanks, sister.  

So, if I or you give up a convention or create a new one, what would that be like? Always maintaining the status quo, while at times a necessity, I admit, may keep us locked in patterns that keep us from being fully who we are. It is exciting to think that there are possibilities, hundreds or thousands, of ways to be or do or speak or think or act that expand our own worlds to embrace life differently. 

Sure, others will respond and possibly with their own discomfort. Remember, that is their choice or convention. Let me hear from you.

Signing in a most conventional style (?)

Most cordially,

Tim

2 comments:

  1. I'm so glad you posted this today. I've been meaning to get in touch with you. I have been thinking about you this week and I hope to see you Sunday.

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  2. Kista,
    Thanks so much. That means a lot to me; hopefully, we can chat a bit.
    Tim

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