Her words still ringing in my ears

[sovay]

Everybody should read this interview with rose_lemberg, linguist, poet, founder and co-editor of Stone Telling, and general all-round awesome person. And look forward to Bridgers when it sees well-deserved print at last.

Note from the offline world, made on my way to the doctor's this morning. The buses go by reading "WE ARE ONE BOSTON" and "BOSTON STRONG" in between their route numbers and destinations. That was weird enough when it was just on Facebook.

Comments

[sovay]

I'm not sure how I feel about "WE ARE ONE BOSTON." Somerville is not Boston is not Watertown is not Cambridge. I'm comfortable with "BOSTON STRONG" on buses, as on Facebook and other media...

I'm not really comfortable with either of them for reasons I should probably examine when I am in somewhat sharper mental state, but I think it is something about the assumption of solidarity: it is like being welcomed among my own kind when I attend a science fiction convention, when I know that what we share is a substrate of literature, an increased likelihood of not needing to explain conversational references, and (although I hope this is beginning to change) some massive disagreement about boundaries and reasonable social behavior. Groups assuming I am part of them when I don't feel like it. Groups assuming certain things about me based on their recognition of me as one of their own, whatever they believe that to mean. But there is a political component; I mistrust the way events or attitudes can be swept up from outside. And I don't like being told what I should feel—tough, resistant, part of a strong city. I'm not going about my daily business because I am from Boston and therefore I'm wicked stubborn, not letting the terrorists win. Things need to get done. That's not urban identity. That's just what people do.

I think there are ways in which I am really not designed for community.