Monday, December 13, 2004
The Outskirts
I spent last night thinking and writing a little. I have been toying with this image of the outskirts for a while, but yesterday it toyed with me. My dream, my desire has been to build a community that exists on the outskirts, for the misfits, the ecclectic, the disenfranchised. I have always been drawn to those on the outside, thosewho do not fit in, to the outskirts.
People who live in the outskirts think differently, but feel in the same way. People on the outskirts see life, see others differently, but want to be accepted, want to be inside. We may not want to fit in, we don't want to do what they do, but we do want to be normal, to be accepted.
To find community, to find caring, to find hope on the outskirts is hard. To find it for a while, only to have it taken away is even harder. The outskirts is filled with pain, with rejection. Whispers float in the air all around. "He's wierd, he's ugly, he's fat, he's strange, he doesn't belong here, don't talk to him, just keep walking wierdo." Only finding a community, a family can drive those sounds away. A community, a family that welcomes your difference, your perspective, your wierdness, and gives you a safe place to express it.
The picture in the extreme, think of the movie Awakenings. Robert DeNiro's character has an illness that separates him from his body. He cannot make himself live and interact with people. A Parkinson's treatment gives a temporary fix for him allowing him to interact with society again, but after a while it is no longer effective, and he disappears again, leaving only his body to go through the motions of life. He describes it as a prison that he is screaming to get out, but he cannot. That is life on the outskirts. You live and exist in the same world as everyone one else, but you see things differently. Something just seems to prevent you from being able to interact "normally", from being like everyone else. No matter how hard you yell and scream and shake the bars, you cannot escape your prison. If you live in the outskirts, you may recognize the image, the feeling of isolation, the sense of being trapped. Can you see the outskirts?
People who live in the outskirts think differently, but feel in the same way. People on the outskirts see life, see others differently, but want to be accepted, want to be inside. We may not want to fit in, we don't want to do what they do, but we do want to be normal, to be accepted.
To find community, to find caring, to find hope on the outskirts is hard. To find it for a while, only to have it taken away is even harder. The outskirts is filled with pain, with rejection. Whispers float in the air all around. "He's wierd, he's ugly, he's fat, he's strange, he doesn't belong here, don't talk to him, just keep walking wierdo." Only finding a community, a family can drive those sounds away. A community, a family that welcomes your difference, your perspective, your wierdness, and gives you a safe place to express it.
The picture in the extreme, think of the movie Awakenings. Robert DeNiro's character has an illness that separates him from his body. He cannot make himself live and interact with people. A Parkinson's treatment gives a temporary fix for him allowing him to interact with society again, but after a while it is no longer effective, and he disappears again, leaving only his body to go through the motions of life. He describes it as a prison that he is screaming to get out, but he cannot. That is life on the outskirts. You live and exist in the same world as everyone one else, but you see things differently. Something just seems to prevent you from being able to interact "normally", from being like everyone else. No matter how hard you yell and scream and shake the bars, you cannot escape your prison. If you live in the outskirts, you may recognize the image, the feeling of isolation, the sense of being trapped. Can you see the outskirts?
// posted by Eric @ 8:59 AM 
