Toni Stone
401 Buck Hollow Road
Fairfax, VT 05454
another choice
Dec. 26, 2001
“I compelled myself to become aware of my WAYS OF PERCEIVING.
of responding to others…of selecting what would count as relevant.. and, one day i came upon. . .(that) i had not known i had been doing THAT THING: i had believed i had been doing something quite different. so it was a HUGE THING to learn.
understandable, but ugly.” – Alice Koler THE STATIONS OF SOLITUDE
it is rare to find someone who can point to the unseen THING. the THING that,
if only you could see it, something else could be selected to inhere in its place, and leave you free from that encumbrance. i found a someone like that. . awhile ago she said to me, “TONI, YOU DON’T REALLY LIVE IN VERMONT. YOU ARE JUST
CAMPING OUT THERE.” at the time she said it, i laughed.
I thought, “SHE DOESN’T REALLY KNOW ME WELL ENOUGH TOSAY THAT” .
but, i found myself affected by what had been said. it bothered me. it kept on bothering me after i left. i was even becoming a little angry, which tipped me off there was big truth in it.
it wouldn’t go away, the bother.
i re-engaged her in the conversation. “WHY DID YOU SAY THAT?”, i asked her. she told me i wasn’t committed or invested in surrounding myself with a family of people that were nurturing to me personally, in Vermont, but that i kept on coming to Boston to find family. she said, where i lived was isolated from the kind of caring and community that i needed to have around me. . .she challenged me.
although i didn’t believe it, at first, the longer i considered it, the more i had to agree,
it seemed true. i wasn’t close with my neighbors. i didn’t know them that well.
i didn’t feel known by them, either. it was lonely. it didn’t have to be like that.
i had been the one withholding. being too busy ot engage.
too other-concerned ot be available locally.
…because someone dared-to-point-out what seemed to be so. ..i found myself capable to begin a process of being present in my own neighborhood. i say a process.
it isn’t happening overnight. little by little there are choices to call neighbors,
thank shopkeepers, invite people in, go out to visit, send flowers, bring candy.
the saddest thing i have ever seen is someone trapped in a behavior or set of behaviors and no one is willing to point to it for them and call a spade, a spade.
they never get to any, another choice.
