Little exchanges add up to a lot

Have you ever thought about the little exchanges that make up the bulk of connection with others? Our lives aren’t generally full of D&Ms (deep and meaningful conversations). Though often I long for that deep connection with people, there is, actually, a limit on how much of that I can handle in any one day.

On Friday the school held the biggest school-community event it’s had in three years. It’s a descendent of the ginormous garage sale known as Thrift Shop. I’ve blogged about that event many times over the last 12 years (see some of those posts here). Now it is called the Fall Festival and Bazaar. The “bazaar” side of things is a scaled-down version of Thrift Shop, designed to cost less in terms of time-commitment for staff and volunteers. It also includes something new: a place where individuals or groups can rent a table to peddle their own wares. Because, of the last three years, we've been saving up stuff we want to get rid of (that isn't rubbish), we decided to rent a table.

Our table as it looked at the start of the day.

There were a few great things about having our own table: 

• I had a place to "be" all day. I didn't feel like I was loitering or wasting time. It was also a starting place for conversations that weren't uncomfortable, a here-and-present kind of thing that helped me stay away from topics that aren't so easy to talk about in a light way.
• We had a bucket of "free stuff" that the younger kids loved. It's such fun giving things away.
• I got to make and sell fudge (but I was disappointed with the packaging we managed, which made the fudge look decidedly dodgy).
• We did actually get rid of a fair bit of stuff to places that it will be used (rather than just sent to the rubbish). We were able to give two boxes of stuff to the Salvation Army who came at the end for stuff that hadn't been sold.

I went into Friday expecting lots of more conversations, and came away feeling a little dissatisfied with how insubstantial most of the exchanges were. But, as I've seen as I reflected over the weekend is that on Thursday and Friday I was part of the gentle web of connection that has begun forming again in the community that centres around the school. Looking back, I had short conversations about all the following things:

A future camping trip

Why I had a nearly 100-year-old hymn book for sale (yes, I sold it)

A recent 500 pound, 8-foot bear attack in the US (yes, there was)

How much my youngest son has grown and changed

How to say “poached egg” in Japanese (no, I can't remember now)

How to use a baccarat espresso maker

What Thrift Shop used to look like (for someone new in the community)

Where Kuranda is (inland from Cairns)

How much CAJ pays substitute teachers

The difference between chocolate and fudge (yes, we were confused by the question)

What it was like growing up a few blocks from the US on the Canadian side of the border and how I’ve never lived in a country that has international land borders (only sea borders, hence “going overseas” is synonymous with going to another country). 

Shopping habits: I prefer to be left alone to consider the option and very much dislike shopkeepers in my face.

How exhausting parenting is emotionally, and how ready I am to be moving on out of being the parent of a school-aged child (7 ½ months…but I’m not counting :D).

Fudge and how we’ve given this to our boys’ teachers for years. This is the last year that will happen.

How I got rejected by the blood bank on Friday at the school because my haemoglobin was a little bit low.

Plans for the next couple of years (moving out, home assignment from July 2023, moving back to Japan).

The big gaps that the pandemic has left us with in community: those whose kids started at the school during the pandemic don’t know the parents of their kids’ friends. I don’t know the faces of a bunch of new teachers (and their kids). That's something that rarely happened before the pandemic, due to staff-family gatherings that have usually been held through the year.

I met a lady who works for the same organisation that publishes the magazine. I’ve only really interacted with her over email, though perhaps we’ve met once, I can’t remember.

I got some hugs and got to see some people I haven’t seen in months or years.

And a thank you for my recent blog posts from someone who says she reads everything I write!

I'll stop there. When you add all that up, that's a lot of networking. And the sorts of stuff that doesn’t happen when you aren’t face-to-face with people. I was exhausted on Friday night (and Saturday). But also thankful.