Small World

You are in an airport in a city far from home when you begin a casual conversation with a total stranger and you find out that her home in Birmingham was built by your uncle. You say, "Small world, isn't it?"

I am linked by my cell phone to satellites. My phone can twitter, tweet and find my way home. I am instantly connected to the world via the internet or tv. I can see wars, riots, rocket launches, assassinations, coups and conquests in real time (as opposed to "not-real" time? When is time not real? .... I digress.) The world grows smaller every day. I watch starving children in Africa, wars in Afghanistan, poverty in Bolivia, child labor in China. I know too much and can do too little.

I don't think the human psyche is made for it. I think we were made for smallish towns. Villages, maybe. Three or four churches, a tavern, a grocer or two, a barber. Places that you can walk to, people who recognize you, boundaries that are marked by rivers and roads and tradition.

Wendell Barry wrote a lyrical book about a small Kentucky town and its bachelor barber, the character for whom the book is named. Jayber Crow gives his car to his girlfriend and never owns another. His world which encompasses Port William and the surrounding county and even Louisville suddenly becomes much bigger. That which can only be reached by walking or hitching a ride suddenly becomes expansive, huge.

I used to feel a smuggish sort of disdain for people who had only lived in one town their whole lives. Being the child of a military father and having lived most of my married life as a Navy wife, I treasure the experiences gained from living in almost every region in our country. I used to think that those "less fortunate" people had very small worlds to contend with. Now, I think maybe it's the other way round.

My world seems much too small.