Meredith’s Musings | Who Are Your People

article by Meredith McKinnie

I was born in the same hospital where I delivered my two daughters. I’ve lived in three residences over the past 41 years, all within a 13-mile radius. To say I’ve stayed close to home is to put it mildly. Physical distance is essentially a foreign concept. Even as friends move away, they eventually return in some capacity, and I continue those friendships from my own turf. While I lack a comparison of places, I possess a profound understanding of regional culture and the people who share my corner of the world. I’m rich in acquaintances, and even if I don’t know you personally, I probably can infer something about you by knowing your people.

In contrast, Husband left home for college and never returned home to live. He has few friends from back home, though investing in personal attachments without a definitive reason is not high on his priority list. He does spend most of his time talking with his family. Raised alongside three brothers, the friendships were built into the family structure. He talks to his twin in Tulsa more often than I converse with my mother who lives 5 miles away. But coming from a much larger community, Husband was perplexed when he moved here as he kept receiving the same question: “Are you related to _________?”And “What about ________, you related to him?” In smaller communities such as ours, we feel the need to situate people via their relations. It’s a luxury of growing up in a small town. We most likely have connections even when we don’t know each other’s name. We also have a hard time keeping secrets. Husband’s social network is essentially an extension of my own. My friends have become his friends. And I guess this happens to some degree in most significant partnerships.

At the root of this inquisitive behavior is a desire for connection, a way to place a person in context prior to or during an exchange. This quest for context extends to behavioral norms. We look each other in the eye when we pass on the street. We say hello whether we know someone or not. We do the half wave from our vehicles in our own neighborhoods even if we’ve never met the person in the opposing car. We acknowledge each other’s existence. I experienced the opposite when visiting big cities. It made sense to me as I walked the streets of New York. If New Yorkers said hey to everyone who passed they would exert all social capacity before breakfast. I remember the freedom of being in close proximity to strangers and not feeling judged. The pressure was off as no one seemed to notice me.

I guess this is one of the many facets of the rural/urban divide. We live in what some call the Heartland, while others refer to our region as flyover country. We have more space than we do people, thus social networks are more layered and oftentimes, complex to navigate. If we offend someone we barely know, we are likely to cross paths with that person again. Perhaps that is the root of our innate politeness, the hope that it will be returned. As some of my friends have moved away, I hear them lament the same things. It’s hard to create adult friendships without the social structures that abound in our youth. Outside the workplace, where we have little choice in our coworkers, social networks can be hard to summon from scratch. A girlfriend tells me how shocked she was to find that she missed running into people in the grocery store. Something that used to annoy her became a daily reminder that she had yet to form connections in her new town.

I often bemoan my reluctance to fly away when I had less responsibilities tethering me to the ground. And yes, I do wish for my girls that experience of living in a new place. I hope they find their own corners to land, free from the burden of my expectations. But in making the choice to stay local, I see the value in decades of regional experience and history, of investing in people long term, of incessant social awareness. I am a product of this place and my people, where it’s impossible to go unnoticed.