I had an epiphany this morning.  It all started during my regular Wednesday morning radio conversation with Bruce Kelly and his producer Kyle Iverson.  Kyle shared with me that his cousin, Tricia, is one of my former students.  Who knew?  It is a small world…at least around here it seems to be.

Learning that Kyle was related to Tricia (another one of my favorite little birds that has moved on to do great things) reminded me of how connected folks in this region are.  It has always fascinated me as a transplant to be in an area where so many folks know and/or are related to each other in some form or fashion.  It isn’t that way in California.  Of course there are more people and greater dispersion of families across the state, so it is a rarity that you run across too many folks that know each other when you walk from one social or work sphere to another.

This morning’s conversation was a reminder of my fascination with that phenomenon.  Even after living here for what will soon be 14 years I still remain a bit amazed every time I run across these type of connections.  For some odd reason I have always found this phenomenon immensely comforting, but why I found it comforting never occurred to me.  Today it came to me – in a relative flash – why I like that so much about this area.  And herein is where the epiphany occurred.

So here it is – the epiphany…in the connectivity lies greater accountability which forces a higher level of integrity.  That rippled connection across the fabric that makes up our lives here in this area leaves less room for fostering fakes and flakes (and so that I am clear I am talking flaky people, not the flakes that we see so much of every winter).  On the whole, that phenomenon makes me feel safer and more loyal to my adopted state than I ever was to my home state of California.  You know here that there is a genuineness, a value placed on one’s word.  You know here that what you do and say matters and it echoes across your life.  I think the appreciation of that is lost in bigger places where there is less connectivity.  I think that the loss of that affects the collective humanity of an area – the collective heart and soul of a community.

I don’t have oodles of cousins, former high school and college friends, or hometown friends here but I figure it I stick around the state for a few more decades and perhaps marry a few more times I will eventually have the level of connectivity so many folks here have – and that, my friends, is a very good thing (okay…maybe not me marrying again – but all the other stuff). 😉

Day six hundred and forty-six of the new forty – obla di obla da

Ms. C