Letter 22 - How Colorful are your Connections?

Nov 28, 2024

Hello Bregdan Woman,

You have Suess today…

Do you have variety and color in your relationships?

Keep reading to find out how I learned about myself by including others different from me.

Walking under the majestic pines, the soft morning breeze messes up her hair. Laughing, Tami turns toward me and smiles. ME? I’m quite delighted to have a new friend.

Before I tell you about Tami, I’m going to dip back into my past.

Have you ever been tempted to talk to a stranger but were afraid to start the conversation?

I used to be afraid as well. For a long while in my life, I was totally unaccustomed to having friends different from myself. My family influenced me to remain with people that were similar. My family welcomed only friends that looked, lived and believed like we did. I did not understand.

Only when something remarkable and wonderful happened did my worldview enlarge.

I met Leigh.

Leigh and I were bridesmaids at our friends' wedding.

As an African American woman, she was one of the first to bring uniqueness to my Caucasian colored world.

We shared easy friendship as we shared bridesmaid's tasks. She, artistic and creative, had a soft laugh and a beautiful smile. We exchanged letters and calls long beyond the wedding.

Through my young adult life, other friends entered my life through circumstance and happenstance. A vacation, a move, or a job change gave me opportunity to make friends with someone different.

I remember with great fondness:

Mia, a transplanted Iranian Muslim woman in Southern Sweden. We attended the same immigrant language school in our Swedish hometown. Living in Sweden was new to us both and we each brought a distinctive personality.

Her Persian life offered me an exotic and exquisite taste of the East. Like her family’s Persians rugs, her warmth, kindness, and intellect lingered with my heart. She shared her home, her family, her food, her opinions, and her acceptance as together we learned to live differently.

We learned a new language. Her fifth language and my third, yet English was not a language we shared. We spent much time looking up words in our respective bi-lingual dictionaries and back again: Persian to Swedish, Swedish to English…back and forth to converse… yes, this was before translation apps. Laughing at ourselves, at our mistakes and oh, so happy with our successes-- we stumbled across cultural thresholds and together we landed in the midst of a caring friendship - each forever influenced and made for the better.

I met Kathy at my children’s school. She was a staunch member of one sect of a large American denominational church. Her religious doctrine allowed narrow minded parents within the school to “black ball” her from leadership within the parenting organization.

These parents ignored her abilities and cruelly spoke ill of her. Her multitalented creative skills were never allowed to support and assist the organization.

However, I watched her as she exhibited compassion at the cruelty, grace toward those spreading false rumors, loved her kids intensely, lived actively, socially responsible, and genuinely kind. I found her easy to talk to and therefore, I asked questions and then, I listened.

I learned about her as a person. I spent time in her world. We crossed into each other’s life. She became a great friend and our children spent hours joyfully laughing, exploring, playing. Never once did I see what was “threatening” about her . . .because she was not threatening on any level.

What she and her family were – was different than those parents and charmingly different than me.

Back to the beginning of this letter… as the wind messes up Tami's hair, I reflect on what she has brought me through our friendship. She is a Buddhist woman from India. Within our friendship, I discovered humor, wisdom and gentle kindness. Her life is intriguing and tragic. Her life is different from mine.

How did we become friends? At a park. Sitting, watching birds snatch a seed from a feeder. I smiled. She smiled. I leaned over and said: “Hi! It’s a gorgeous day to be outside. My name is Suess. What’s your name?”

Tami’s smile broadened as she shifted her body and we faced each other. “Tami, my name is Tami. I wanted to say Hi but I was afraid.“

My short hair, tattoos, multiple piercings, and western behavior was different than her. She took a chance.

We talked, listened, exchanged phone numbers, and developed a wonderful friendship.

I count various ‘different than me’ friends through the years . . .

Britta - a Creole friend, from a very random “I am lost in the back woods of Louisiana” encounter at a gas station somewhere in Southern Louisiana.

Jace - who is trans, came from a Facebook exchange.

Nessie – first generation American born Muslim friend was added from a physical therapy appointment.

Jocee – who lives with profound deafness, came from an animal shelter volunteer meeting.

Ang - a Native American shaman waltzed into my world when I visited a different spiritual meeting.

Dianne - a liberal practicing Jewish New Yorker joined me while we waited in line for a taco truck lunch and shared that lunch on a bench.

Jewell, a self-proclaimed white witch, became my friend while giving me a new tattoo.

Many conversations, head scratches and head shakes occurred with my Colored Connections.

I listened. Laughed. Cried. Listened. Understood. My “wonderfully different from me” friends and I may disagree on certain aspects in life: we agree on much more.

We are different and yet, oh so identical. Each woman enlarges and brightens my life.

Each time, a new friend was discovered because we listened with our hearts.

Isn’t that what this world needs? For its people to come together and care? To simply embrace the beautiful individuality of another?

As I walk, a stunning variety of women emerges. Peacefully coexisting within me, I am every woman. Tad bits of Leigh, Mia, Kathy and Tami dwell inside my spirit.

Fragments of Britta’s, wisdom, Jace’s goodness, and Nessie’s integrity drench my soul. Joce, Ang, Dianne and Jewell intermingle in my spirit.

Glimmers of their reflections live inside my heart. I am made of these women and they, no matter where they travel; they go reflecting a tad bit of this West Texan woman… their friend who desired and desires to be different.

I challenge you too, to welcome someone different into your world. Take a chance and risk moving beyond the familiar.

Courageous. Willing to be open. Determined to change the ways family did things.

Sounds like a Bregdan woman.

That IS a Bregdan woman.