About eight years ago I decided to take up the accordion. (Spare me the accordion jokes. I've heard them all.) For the most part, I am self taught (oh, the horror) and play alone, unless D talks me into playing out in public with him. When I bought my first new accordion a few years later, a friend told me about an annual accordion and concertina festival in western Massachusetts. D insisted that we go.
It was late September. We got lost trying to find Bucksteep Manor, the home of the Northeast Squeeze-In. (I don't make this stuff up!) Even the local police and mail carriers in Washington, MA couldn't help us. No one seemed to know that there was an accordion festival in town. (It's odd that such a boisterous instrument tends to be played by introverts who don't want you to know where they are.) Finally, we found someone who told us that the entrance to Bucksteep would be on our right, when we came to a flat-roofed church.
We finally arrived at the winding driveway of the campgrounds, and followed it uphill, approaching the main lodge from the side. It wasn't until we came around the corner that we saw the wide front porch, spilling over with close to a hundred accordion players. (Scared yet?)
Though strangers all, it was easy to fall into a comfort zone with one another based on our shared love of the accordion and the desire to play together; which we did in small groups and workshops, culminating in an all-accordion orchestra piece we played at the Saturday night concert.
D has never let me forget what came out of my mouth that day. I swear it came directly from my unconscious and shot out my mouth with no editing:
"I'm with my people!"
You see, no matter how self-directed and self-sufficient a person is, each of us needs to make connections. It's relationships that validate us. It's relationships that make us feel cared about. It's relationships that make us whole. It's relationships that keep us sane. (Well, sometimes they make us crazy, I'll admit.)
Since moving to Maine, making connections has been a lot of hard work. No one has come knocking at my door to say "be my friend." All the legwork's been on my part, and sometimes it's exhausting. But it is necessary. I have no tolerance for people who say, "I have no friends." That's a statement usually made by people who think relationships fall into your lap. They don't. You must seek them out. Sometimes you'll be rejected. But it's so important to your mental health that you must keep trying.
A year later, I returned to the Squeeze-In and won the limerick contest. A small tribute to connections,my poem goes like this:
If you're looking for reeds by the heap-full,
Come to Bucksteep, with chapel, no steeple,
With each pull and each squeeze,
You can play all you please,
And best of all, be with your people.
copyright 2008 starfishdoc
Here's a picture of my favorite accordion.
5 comments:
You have always been, to me, an inspiration, in the many years we have known each other, you are a mentor and role model. Why the accordion? they are heavy and awkward aren't they? I recommend the handbells..they are definitely for introverts....especially when you can only play one note..they are a little strange...I don't think we have a limerick contest though..I'll work on that..you go, Obi.
You are always so on target. Friendships are hard work... something that i find difficult in the drudgery of winter.. (why call and go out with friends when i can sit inside all warm and toasty in my sweats!) A nice reminder that i need those connections with "my people" as much as i need my time on the couch.
Dear Pammi,
Yes, the accordion is heavy and awkward, but I'll never run out of keys and buttons to play!
Let me know when you graduate to two bells.
Yes, Catherine,
Winter tries to make couch potatoes of us all. But I salute you for knowing how important time with "your people" really is!
Do you think your people would have any interest in meeting my people?
I have pondered this topic since you posted it and all of a sudden I got it.
My husband and I are temporarily in the Washington, DC area this winter and so we are not in our usual domain. For transients, we have been able to find our people.
My husband immediately searched out friends from a national organization we are members of. A subset of the national organization meets once a month at a local restaurant to discuss the latest news related their area of interest as well as other topics of the day. Another subset meets one Saturday morning a month where someone presents a book they may have written or on a topic of interest to them.
We are also interested in the current presidential campaign. When the media began to present the type of voters supporting the given candidates, we quickly understood that there were more people that thought like we did about our potential candidate. Then we started to talk with friends of ours about the primaries and we were in agreement with them about the candidate too. The candidates were out in the local area and we were able to attend a presidential candidate forum and chat with others there while we were waiting for the event to start.
And finally we joined a local community center to use the pool and the exercise room. This community center also has other activities that we can participate in. One afternoon we attended a movie at the community center. We knew we were amongst people with a common interest by the fact that we all laughed at the same places in the movie.
After some thought I do understand that these groups make up who we are and that we need to be part of them.
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