Webwords

“I can get along with just about anyone as long as they show respect for other people.”

When I was looking for a new place to live, I looked at shared accommodation as well as suites for rent. I said the above to someone who was looking for a roommate, and when I thought about it more, I realized that it covers a lot.

When we show respect for people we live with, we clean up after ourselves, we give them the space and privacy they need, and we are considerate in everything we do. When we show respect for people in other situations, we still do all of these things.

Good communication is part of respect. We all have shortcomings and habits that bother other people. The smaller ones can be left alone, while the bigger ones might need be talked about — politely, knowing that the person who irks us is probably irked by things we do.

Sometimes we have to tell other people negative things about themselves. How do you tell a person that you’ve had complaints about him, or that she’s causing problems for other people? With the facts, in private, with consideration of the person’s feelings, and with enough information that the person has the opportunity to change. That’s respect.

To truly respect other people, we have to listen, observe, and continually try to move beyond our own limited perspectives.

Part of respect is not making other people wrong in our minds just for being different from ourselves. Having different opinions or cultures or personalities from ours doesn’t mean that the other people are wrong. They’re just different. We can learn from other opinions and cultures even if we don’t agree with them, and other personality types have their strengths as well.

Respect for ourselves includes not letting anyone make us feel bad if they label us as wrong for being different from themselves. That is their problem, and I won’t let it be mine.

Showing respect isn’t about viewing people as on a different level. It’s about treating people as they should be treated. The people I admire the most are those who consistently show this respect. Showing respect elevates a person far more than receiving it does.

I can get along with just about anyone as long as they show respect for other people.

Today I packed my overflowing shoeboxes of letters and photos. I don’t like to throw away old letters, especially when they’re from other countries. The ones from Israel had Hebrew on the envelopes, the Christmas cards from Sweden had Swedish Christmas greetings, and a few other languages and cultures surfaced.

When you work together and live together and travel together, strong friendships can develop. I regret to say that I wasn’t as good at keeping in touch with those friends after the first few years as they were with me, but I remember them well. Tuvia’s quick wit, Rammy’s love of puzzles, shopping in Jerusalem with Kim and Heather, raising orphaned kittens with Sarah and Kattis, working in the candy factory with…so many, travelling in Turkey and Greece with Ruth and others, having deep conversations with Sabine….

Perhaps conversations with some of those people will happen again.

1984. We were driving along and up a winding gravel road somewhere outside of Banff, with our backpacks in the back seat. He put a Mike Oldfield cassette in the tape deck. The music and the mountains merged.

My friend Linda and I had already spent two weeks hiking and backpacking in the Rocky Mountains. We’d camped except for a couple of nights at the Banff hostel. We’d survived hail and lightning, hypothermia, and a campstove that didn’t work in below-freezing temperatures. The mountains had become our routine.

Linda had to return home after two weeks, so I’d arranged to go backpacking with a group for my third week in the mountains. We gathered at the hostel and went for a day hike together for the first day.

It was a good group, and we had fun together. One of the guys ended up with a rock in his pack as payback for something; I don’t remember what. He was good-natured about it when he found the rock.

Another of the guys was limping slightly because of a not-yet-healed injury. He realized after that hike that he wouldn’t be able to do the backpacking trip with us. It was a hard realization after the group had already bonded.

The next day, we drove to the starting point. I don’t remember this guy’s name, but he offered to drive me although he couldn’t do the backpacking trip himself. He wanted to be with the group as long as he could, and I thought he liked me.

I’d never heard Mike Oldfield before. It expressed what I felt after living in the mountains for two weeks. It also expressed the feelings with this guy who was part of our group but had to see us off instead of going with us deeper into the mountains.

When we arrived at the starting point, he insisted on giving me the tape. Tubular Bells, I think it was. I carried it with me on the five-day backpacking trip.

That tape died long ago, but it inspired to me to buy the two-cassette set The Complete Mike Oldfield. My tapes later got forgotten when I got a CD player.

Sorting through things to pack, I came across those tapes. Mike Oldfield is playing again.

How not to have a flat tire

Have a flat tire (or puncture / tyre):

• On a cold day, so cold that your fingers can’t work properly
• When it’s raining
• When your bike rims are filthy and the rain turns the guck to slime
• Nowhere near an overhang or other shelter
• Nowhere near a pay phone where you can call for a taxi (you don’t have a cell phone with you)
• When you’re in a hurry to get somewhere

How not to fix a flat tire

To fix your flat tire (or puncture / tyre):

• Discover that your patch glue has dried up.
• Resort to metal tire levers because the tire is on the rim so tightly that nylon levers can’t get it off. While you’re putting the tire back on the rim, puncture the tube with one of these levers.
• Overlook the second puncture created when you punctured the tube with the tire lever because the lever went right through the tube.
• After you’ve patched the tube three times and gotten it back on the wheel again, pump it up, only to watch it go flat again in a few minutes.
• Find out that your spare tube isn’t the right size or type.

Fellow cyclists will understand.

Start at the top of the gentle hill, where the movie theatre and hardware store and restaurant are. The movie theatre plays select movies that aren’t new releases, and it isn’t part of a theatre chain; it’s a place to go for something different. Next to it, the hardware store is small, old-fashioned, family-run. Walk in and describe what you want, and they’ll find it for you.

Across the road is the bank where they recognize you when they see you. Down the road to the right is the pet food and supplies store. Pets are allowed in the store with their owners, and people talk to each other there.

Go down the hill until it evens out and the boulevard starts. On the right is the shoe repair shop, the dry cleaner’s with a woman who does alterations, bakery, second-hand clothing shop, a few others, and the health food store.

When you turn left at this point, the road forks. At the left of the fork and in the middle of the fork are two willow trees. Take the left fork, and a block later is another willow tree.

In the spring, the other trees line these side roads with pink blossoms. I start watching the trees in March to see when the blossoms are ready to burst out.

I live in a house between the two prongs of the fork a few blocks up, a quiet couple of minutes from the willow trees. I live in a town within a city, on the edge of the city, on the edge of the continent. The main road leads to the university. Beyond that is the ocean.

Every other time I’ve moved, I was moving to something, and I was ready for the transition. This time, the choice was not mine. I’m fortunate that my new home will be in the same area, and there are other good things about it. But I’ll be a little closer to traffic, and I won’t see the three willow trees every time I walk to the grocery store.