Here’s this week’s Smartmom from the award-winning Brooklyn Paper. The SNA newspaper of the year just won a new award from the Independent Free Papers of America, which cited the paper’s July 28 editorial, “Marty’s blind spot."
Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams’s famous play, “A Streetcar
Named Desire” says, “I have always depended on the kindness of
strangers.”
But Smartmom begs to differ.
It’s the strangers
who turn into friends that Smartmom depends on. And that’s what
micro-community is all about. Indeed, it’s the small community
groupings that form within a larger community that make it such a
soulful place to live.
Here in Park Slope, there are many
intersecting micro-communities brought together by blocks, schools,
civic causes, PTA’s, cafes, running in the park, dogs, the Y, the
Community Bookstore.
Smartmom was reminded of this last week when
she got a call from a friend with the sad news that a mutual friend’s
father died suddenly on Rosh Hashanah.
In less than an hour,
e-mails were flying back and forth about carpooling to the funeral in
Westchester and where people could send money in their friend’s
father’s name.
This spontaneous show of love and support
impressed Smartmom. It is during tough times that the small gestures of
friendship mean so much. A card. Flowers. A phone call. It helps to
know that your friends are ready, willing, and able to do whatever
needs to be done.
This particular micro-community of women became
friends at PS 321. Smartmom met one of them in a rambunctious playgroup
that convened in Smartmom’s living room when the Oh So Feisty One was
an oh so feisty 1.
She and Smartmom have been friends ever since. They now share a therapist, a meditation circle, and numerous cosmetics catalogs.
Smartmom’s
writer’s group is another one of these micro-communities. On 9-11, when
the firefighter husband of one of the writer’s in the group perished at
the World Trade Center, the members sprung into action to do whatever
they could to help their friend and her son.
In the 10 years
they’ve been meeting, this group of writers have supported one another
through the thick and thin of death, divorce, the quest for an agent,
and writer’s block.
Then there’s the micro-community of the moms
that Smartmom met when OSFO was in pre-school at Congregation Beth
Elohim. At least four times a year, they meet for a “mom’s dinner.”
These hard-to-schedule events are cherished as a chance to catch up and
share what’s going on.
Last summer, only three of them managed to
get together for a quick dinner at Sette one humid night. But that
meant a more intimate conversation and more Italian rosé to go around.
While nibbling on the restaurant’s delicious
and decadent Parmesan fritters, Smartmom fretted because she didn’t
know where Teen Spirit was going to high school in the fall. History
Mom, a teacher at a Manhattan private school, told her about a school
(let’s call it “Hippie School”) that would be perfect for him.
“Call them,” she said. “I just have a feeling it might be a good fit.”
Smartmom
knows enough to listen to her smart friend. When she called Hippie
School the next day, nobody picked up the phone. Later, she tried the
cellphone number listed for Hippie School’s parent coordinator.
The
principal answered and the rest is history. Apparently his Blackberry
was broken and he’d borrowed the parent coordinator’s cell.
Coincidence? Fate? You be the judge.
Teen Spirit is now enrolled at this unique school, and Smartmom got History Mom a bouquet of flowers from Zuzu’s Petals.
“I didn’t do anything!” History Mom exclaimed.
“Yes,
you did! Your suggestion set it all in motion. It’s all because we got
together for dinner the other night,” Smartmom said.
Then there’s
the ad-hoc micro-community that is Third Street (on the north side
between Sixth and Seventh Avenues). Last Spring, when a neighbor was
dying of cancer, neighbors shared their shock and grief and tried to
figure out how to be of help. It was one of the most difficult things
this micro-community has had to face.
Sometimes, there is pain. But more often there are shared bottles of wine, impromptu BBQs and sidewalk conversations.
The
other evening, Smartmom saw a Third Streeter saying goodbye to her son
as he got into a car bound for college in upstate New York.
Smartmom
watched as this strapping young man she’s known since he was 5 hugged
his mother and brother. While she did shed a tear, she knew enough not
to interrupt this moment of tenderness.
Listening. Caring. Networking. Yenta-ing. Wanting to solve one another’s problems. That’s what micro-community is all about.
A micro-community grows together
and offers love and support as needed. It’s about knowing when to help
and when not to intrude. Subtle. Heartfelt and real: these
micro-communities are a source of strength.
So Blanche, it’s not the kindness of strangers. It’s the strangers who become friends that are worth believing in