Life Diagrams

Life Diagrams
   It’s a beautiful, snowy Sunday afternoon, and the view out of every window in my house is postcard-perfect. Every scene is just what anyone would conjure up in their mind when they think of Vermont. It’s very quiet and peaceful, but I’ll be grateful later to hear the scraping noise of the plow guy in my driveway. And before dark I’ll head out to shovel the walk, again. (I have a fairly, short bricked walkway to my front door, but why anyone would build a walkway, here in Vermont, wider than the width of a shovel, is beyond me.) The whole scene of this calm Sunday afternoon is in such stark contrast to what we witnessed just a few days ago when the Capitol was overrun by Trump supporters. There was death, destruction, terror, violence and vile slogans shouted and worn on t-shirts. That all seems like a world away from here in this comfy snow globe where I sit. If you were to put a snapshot of the Capitol building last Wednesday in one circle of a Venn diagram, and a snapshot of the winter view out my kitchen window in another circle, there would be absolutely no overlap.
   I’ve been wondering a lot about Venn diagrams lately. I recently learned that they were created in the 1880s by John Venn, an English logician. My daughter Molly uses them while teaching history and has her students create Venn diagrams that “compare and contrast” urban and rural life during the Gilded Age. My sister, Kate, a K-12 school librarian says that Venn diagrams are great visual aids to help her younger students sort out information, like how their lives are different from, or similar to, the characters in the books she reads to them. But I’ve been thinking about how Venn diagrams might work with people. For example, I’m guessing that my twin sister, Ann, and I might have Venn diagrams that almost totally overlap. We share similar interests, we’re both mothers, swimmers, field hockey players, live in Vermont, have the same political leanings, drive Subaru Crosstreks, enjoy the same books, love family reunions. There are some places, however that would not overlap. She climbs 4,000-foot mountains. I belong to the Meat Loaf (the singer) Facebook fan group. I don’t think Ann does. She has dogs. I have cats. Although the “intersection” of our Venn diagram would be quite large, there are still some places that don’t overlap.
   After thinking about my personal Venn diagram with Ann, I wondered about other people I know. What are my common, intersection, shaded areas, with other friends and family members? What about people I don’t think I have a lot in common with? Could we both still be fans of poet Mary Oliver, or have grown up in a small town or love swimming in the ocean off the Outer Banks? Could the man I chatted with in the grocery line (from six feet away) be a Meat Loaf fan?
    When I was talking with Molly about my new interest in applying Venn diagrams to people, she told me about a Venn-like exercise she did at a conference with a group of people who didn’t know each other. The attendees were told to find one other person that they had something in common with. Not too difficult. Another history teacher, another parent, another runner. Then the pairs were instructed to find a commonality with another pair. Then the foursomes had to find something in common with another foursome. This process continued until the entire group had to find one trait, like or dislike, theme, interest, something that they all shared, other than that they were all humans and lived on Earth. (For the record, everyone involved had “non-traditional pets,” as in not a dog or cat, as children.)
   While watching the news footage of the destruction of the Capitol building, played over and over the past few days, several intruders were highlighted by the press, clearly gaining the attention they were seeking by their dress, the flags they were waving or the disrespectful poses they struck for photo-ops. The slogans on the t-shirts were so disgusting. A “staff” shirt from “Camp Auschwitz.” And “6MWNE,” meaning six million were not enough. I truly can’t fathom creating such shirts, buying them or wearing them. And I understand that these people were the extremists in the crowd. They are being arrested and charged, as they should be. I put these people in a separate category of true, unashamedly, White Supremacists. And as my friend says, “I have no interest in understanding them or talking to them. They want me dead.” But we’re also finding out that the crowd included police officers, veterans, business owners, state legislators, ordinary citizens who are so disillusioned with our country and the verified and valid outcome of the presidential election, that they were incited into a frenzy of violence. The crowd at the Capitol building included a busload of Vermonters.
   Stretching my interest in personal Venn diagrams to its limit, what would my Venn diagram with any of these people look like? If I were to sit down with someone who was in the crowd at the Capitol last Wednesday, where could we begin a conversation? Maybe we are both parents. We worry for our children and our future grandchildren, and what their lives will be like. I worry because I believe that, without government intervention, climate change is going to drastically affect the world I leave for my grandchildren. And she worries because she believes liberal, lefty, Democratic Socialists are going are to ruin capitalism and all she has worked hard for, and wants to pass on to her grandchildren. We are likely on opposite ends of the political, cultural, social and spiritual spectrums.
    And at the same time, could there be any commonality? Maybe she also endured the death of her mom at a young age. Maybe she also has four tattoos. Maybe it is too soon to even go there. I am in no way making light of the divide that that exists and is tearing at the seams of our country and our democracy, and I understand that a Pollyannaish approach will not be helpful or effective. But what will be effective? Common ground, even if it’s as fragile and as simple sharing the role of being mothers, and then a conversation? Behind the conversation needs to be a true desire to know where we “overlap,” understand where we don’t, and more importantly, why we don’t. So where do we start? Maybe with “hello,” and see where are circles line up from there.
   The National Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman, addressed this in her beautifully lyrical poem “The Hill We Climb,” which she so elegantly recited this week at President Biden’s inauguration. She said our nation “isn’t broke, but simply unfinished.” She offers some hope, stating: “We are striving to forge a union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man. And so we lift our gaze not to what stands between us but what stands before us.” And then, she gives us this challenge, which should be the words that linger in our minds and our hearts. “For there is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it; if only we’re brave enough to be it.”
 
 
 
Ann sent me the link to this short Danish video that she uses in her classes at Mt. Abraham Union High School to illustrate we often put people in “boxes” without knowing their whole story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD8tjhVO1Tc