Welcome to my village: the power of small gestures

By Janet Grace Riehl Essay and image copyright 2014

Mine is a life composed of small gestures.  The days of sweeping projects are gone, or at least on pause. If I’m not dreaming big, and thinking big.     If I’m not out there Being Somebody and changing the world, is that okay?

 

Back on our home place on the bluffs of the Mississippi I kneel at my father’s feet to take off his socks, roll up the legs of his pants, and bring the warm bucket of water to soak his feet. We have known each other all our lives. My brother is the only person still alive who has. Now 65 years in I watch him fade towards death. He is so fragile, and so smart that he knows just how fragile he is. I am his youngest and will always be so. Will he leave us before his 99^th birthday next November? It hardly seems possible that he can. And, it hardly seems possible that he won’t. I’m happy with the small gestures in caring for my father: the jokes and hugs amongst the rounds of medicine, breathing treatments, meals, and putting on those damn compression socks after we soak his feet.

 But, Pop! Why can’t you be happy with a life of small gestures? With so many books published and so many significant things accomplished, could we cool it with the projects already? Just leave me in my land of small gestures.

Back in the city I roam a neighborhood that has become my village. Villages value small gestures. Public space becomes intimate place when the world becomes your village. I live in one of the most beautiful places in St. Louis—the Central West End. It’s near Forest Park (the site of the 1904 World’s Fair) and the Chase Park Plaza, an icon of elegance built in the 1920s. Historic houses and tree-lined streets. Lots of places to spend your money.  I keep my money in my pocket while soaking it all in.

I greet everyone who looks as if they want to be greeted. In villages all over the world, we do that. I believe that greeting—a nod of the head, a smile, a ‘morning, a casual pleasantry or banter in passing, even a brief conversation about that cute little dog straining on the leash—makes for a safe neighborhood as much as a watch group.

A village is a place where we affirm our oneness and acknowledge our differences. A village is a place where we exchange the generous impulse to share ourselves with others—to connect. Public space yields up its intimacy as I greet the street sweepers and they reply, “Keep on rockin’ that hat!” “It’s spring!” I say. And they agree, “Yes!” The hat in question is a “Janet Special” bought from a thrift shop, and then trimmed with a hot pink velvet ribbon held together with a gold paperclip posing as a buckle.

At the side door of the Chase Park Plaza the doorman gives me a hand jive lesson (we’ve invented some of our own).  I pass the flower arrangement in the middle of the black and white marble floor to greet the concierge from Barcelona in Spanish. Then down the stairs to my health club where the receptionist—a young man who coaches a soccer team—greets me.

“Good morning, Miss Janet.”

“Good morning, Mr. A. J. Did you win last night? Are you up to ten, now?”

Later at the upstairs coffee lounge I meet the executive pastry chef who hails from Nigeria. He imparts a surprise benediction on my day as he shares his wisdom to me, his newfound friend, who he may never see again.

The lilt of West Africa wafts over me. “We must give thanks everyday to God—or whatever we believe in. It’s good for our souls.” He understands about village, and his words stay with me.

Yes, my life is composed of small gestures that earn my keep in the world. By turns I’m an honorary auntie, a mentor in passing, a tour guide, a teacher, a problem-solver, a friend. I pour tea and break out my really good chocolate before drawing mind maps on newsprint spread over the floor. I listen to my friend and bring all my consulting experience to bear. The stuff I used to get paid big bucks for I now give freely. It’s no less valuable for it. In the midst of a family heavily populated with super-high achievers (a world class physicist, a nationally influential lawyer in mortgage lending) it’s hard not to compare.

Yet, I relax into my world of small gestures knowing that out of these I’ve created a life worth living. Out of these I’ve become a woman in my prime with time to just be.

Janet Grace Riehl is a down home country girl who roamed the world and then came home. Her blog magazine is Riehl Life: Village Wisdom for the 21st Century. Become a Riehlife.com Villager.