At a very young age, I fell under the influence of the peculiar Miss Pickett. Since then, she's been an invaluable role model. Especially right now.
My wonder-struck reality is that I was a peculiar child raised in a peculiar family that belonged to a peculiar religion in a peculiar town with a peculiar school system & peculiar everything.
Peculiar in a positive way, as in unexpected, unfamiliar, atypical. Because I most assuredly was, the Lockharts certainly were, even within our atypical religion & town.
And, as I experienced, being peculiar turned out to be a good thing. I look at life through very different eyes, with a background that was definitely different on about as many levels as you can name. For me, that clicked. My experience clearly wasn't the norm, but the older I get the more I realize that anyone who actually is certifiably "normal" is far more peculiar than I!!
If I could, like Miss Pickett, take off a pair of heavy black-rimmed glasses & change my life from what it was - well, I wouldn't. My life had its strange moments, my background often leaves me at a disadvantage talking to others within & without my small community, but I've come to appreciate the magic threaded throughout all my days, from the moment I came home from the hospital to the here & now.
Perhaps that's the biggest AH HA! moment I brought away from this past weekend's writing workshop. Lots & lots of people experience me as peculiar, find that disconcerting & disturbingly unfamiliar. It is what it is. Look at the family I grew up in, the religion that forms the foundation of my steadfast sprituality, the remarkable town I've called my own for all my life, the fact that I can stand on a spot in my little hometown & see where where I went to elementary school, high school & college. No escaping that each is peculiar.
It's true that peculiar can mean strange, odd, funny, bizarre & weird. In fact, a LOT of folks might use just those very words to describe yours truly, my family, community, church, schools & culture. Not me! I love getting to grow up, grow older, grow wiser in environments that encourage curiosity, reveling in the mysterious, that's delightfully atypical & wondrously unexpected.
Peculiar - that's me! And darned proud of it. Who isn't? And if they aren't - how sad for them!
No comments:
Post a Comment