Conviviality I

For a couple of months now I've had the idea of "conviviality" in my mind, triggered by my living circumstances while working away from home.  And the idea did not come from me.

It was necessary that I find a small, furnished apartment for the winter months, a place close to the college where I was teaching, a place that could look after me instead of me looking after it.  I found such a place in a building housing 44 apartments and, within days, I was able to figure out what kind of place it was.  There were people like me, with short- and medium-term contracts, people who had another life in another place:  workers with the utility companies; doctors from large cities with specialties not offered permanently in the small local hospital; "fixers" of all kinds whose consulting talents were required by local industry.  Then, there were the really short-termers:  people from the small villages who needed access to the hospital for tests, for obstetric care; folks who were passing through for a couple of days before pursuing their journey elsewhere.  And then, there were the lifers -- I was really surprised to see lifers -- who make small, furnished, equipped apartments their permanent home.  It is those folks who became very interesting to me.

During the first week, I observed a couple of these men (and, yes, all of the lifers were men) and wondered why they would live there.  One carried a small dog under his arm, wore sunglasses all of the time, and generally did not communicate with anyone other than by nodding in acknowledgement when spoken to.  He had an old car one week which was replaced by a newer older car the next (my sister quipped that perhaps when the car ran out of gas he would change it for another).  Yet another very old man needed help to make his phone calls from the booth in the front lobby -- apparently he had been there for over 20 years, was almost blind, counted on the same taxi driver to transport him about, and relied on the cleaning staff to help him with very basic needs.  Then there was the person who is responsible for my current thinking about conviviality.

I first noticed him near the grocery store one cold day.  He was walking slowly, carrying a knapsack and another bag.  Here was another man with sunglasses.  I saw deep lines on a very fine face and wondered if he might be ill; he was pale grey.  By the time I arrived at the apartment building, there he was.  Had I known, I might have offered him a ride home.  Over the weeks that followed, I saw him frequently, always in the same way -- obviously a man with a routine.  He never spoke to anyone; he never smiled.

As I was leaving the building one day, I saw him approaching with his parcels.  I waited to hold the door opened for him to save him from fumbling with his keys.  No smile, but a polite "thank you".  In a few days, that favour was returned, this time with a smile and a greeting.

With warmer weather, I was walking my 7-10 km a day, often on the boardwalk by the waterfront, a magnificent place where people stop and chat even with strangers.  One such day, I noticed him in animated conversation with a couple and I barely recognized him.  For one thing, he'd abandoned his sunglasses and I saw his eyes were the colour of aquamarines.  His face was radiant and pink, and was so totally transformed from his usual somber look that I couldn't help but stare. 

I walked by without saying anything, not wanting to interrupt them, but he stepped back and greeted me, distancing himself from the couple, obviously wanting to engage in a new conversation.  And there came a deluge of information from this person whose name I did not know:  he was a widower still grieving intensely over the loss of his wife; he had lived in another town when his son had been assigned there as a police officer but moved when said son was transferred elsewhere; he came from a small village far down the North Shore which had changed over the years when the fishing industry had declined; he found it difficult to be in this small city without knowing many people.  His "career" in the past had been as a fishing guide on the many salmon rivers in the area; he hoped to start working on one of these in the coming months -- the prospects were good.  He longed for friends, a network of people, and, with a struggle, he uttered the word "conviviality" as if it was a word he had never said out loud.  Then, with barely another word, he turned and said he had to be somewhere else.  I had not said a word (rare for me, for those who know how chatty I am).

I thought about this monologue for a long time and slowly came to the realization that the lifers in my building were largely marginalized people who barely had the resources to pay the rent but who needed a place to live in total dignity which they would not have enjoyed had they lived in subsidized housing where residents are stigmatized by their social and economic situation.  I found myself in a state over these people, admiring them for not giving up in the face of difficulty, but also agonizing over their obvious loneliness and disconnectedness.  Perhaps they were all looking for "conviviality".

More in a few days.

Comments

[heather]

Thanks for this, Ann. It's very good!