Our extended family of people we don't even know, but whom we need--
How is it that television personalities come to be like extended family members? I was listening to the morning news, and there's a big shake-up coming-- one woman is leaving, as she is moving to be closer to family and friends. And the morning weather man, one whom we are all fond of, is moving to the evening slot. What???? Who will do the Monday rooster?
And there are the familiar actors in film; we feel a certain fondness, like seeing old friends, even if the movie we are watching is not all that great. Or even if it is; then, we feel a sense of pride for them, for a job well done. They don't know us, will likely never meet us, but yet, they are fixtures in our lives, at least on the periphery.
We cry when a favorite actor or musician dies. This week, Sinead O'Connor died, and yes, her life was a decades-long struggle with mental health and pain. She was a woman who demanded to live on her own terms; sometimes polarizing, but authentic as hell. And Tony Bennet passed away, too, just shy of his 97th birthday. He was a smooth-singing, gentlemanly crooner all of my life-- and I will miss hearing his voice doing new material. He found ways of reinventing himself, staying fresh and current while partnering with younger singers and exploring material that one might not have associated with his "style"-- a true artist. I feel the same way when a writer whom I admire passes. Sometimes, even when a political figure, like John Lewis, dies. And, to an extent, even when a favorite sports figure bows out, it affects me to a small degree.
But why? How do these complete strangers become people we feel close to? Is it because our own families are a little too familiar? We can't idolize them in the same way, because we know what they are like if they skipped lunch. They are cranky at times, and they fail at things. They are human. But so are these public figures; they make mistakes-- often colossal, news-cycle-dominating stupid choices. But we mentally pat them on the shoulder, mutter a little "there, there" or "we'll get 'em next time." We don't often extend the same grace to our nearest and dearest.
I'm reminded that we are all part of the human community, and we tend to create schema into which we fit the things we want to understand. Maybe this is how we build for ourselves a type of extended family tree of people we see and would like to know, to have a relationship with, in the family sense. We can place ourselves in the world as long as we have a network of others that we fit into, and there is no reason why our network can't include not only blood relations but also chosen friends and people whom we'd like to be friends with. It only gets weird if you become a stalker, right?
There's that old game "Six Degrees of Separation," and it applies here. It is said that we are all just six degrees of relatedness away from any other given human being. I have not tested this theory, but some people have enjoyed playing that game and seeing where the associations connect. I know my husband is not that far removed from the first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony (John Carver). To my knowledge, I'm not related generationally to anyone of any particular import, but I've never really puzzled it out. On my father's side, the family name is connected to an historic manor house/castle, and there's some rebellious and feisty admiral who served in Parliament in there somewhere-- but I have never plotted the dotted lines to figure out how or if I am related in any provable way. I'm interested only because my own direct family bloodlines are running really scarce; Dad was an only child, he had lost all connections with any cousins decades ago, and my mother was one of two; my aunt is childless, so I have no first cousins at all.
We create family, and sometimes those ties are stronger than the ones by which we are blood-related. Support systems can, and usually do, include a wide assemblage of people we know from work, church, social situations, and shared interests. Why not include, as distant "family," the people on the screen we'd like to share a meal with? Maybe they'd be a disappointment in real life, but then, so are our own blood relations, at times. We can keep these strangers at a distance, so then they won't disillusion us with wet towels on the floor or some other deeply human foibles. Maybe we need them all the more because we can.
Have a good day,
C
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