(May 2008)

This
summer represents something of a milestone for me. I've now been in
Somerville longer than I lived in California, where I am "from." So,
I'm thinking about the differences between there and here.

Just
about every year when December arrives, I think that I must be
self-destructive to live here. Decades ago, I stopped having the
flashbacks and anxiety attacks associated with post-traumatic stress
disorder. But depression is one of its legacies that I must regularly
deal with. For some reason, the dark of Somerville's winter gets it
going.

This last winter was really bad. By evening, I'd feel so
down that I didn't even have the energy to heat up frozen dinners. I'd
just crawl under the quilt with one and lick it.

Then, just
after income tax return day, everything changes. Spring has the impact
of a religious experience. The waxing sunshine and the explosion of new
life make my spirits soar, and I wonder how I could live anywhere else.

Californians
are often caricatured in the minds of New Englanders. It's true that
almost every nut cult in the history of the universe has at least one
adherent in Los Angeles County.

But for the most part,
Californians want and care about the same things that you do. They care
about their children's health and wellbeing. They want to be paid
fairly for working hard. They don't want to be continually stressed
about money. They would like the streets to be clean and for things to
get fixed when they break. They want government to be honest and
effective. They would prefer to breathe clean air and live a long time.

Californians
are more comfortable than Somervillians are in expressing warm
feelings. They are more welcoming, but relationships don't have the
depth and endurance of those here.

Somervillians are more
comfortable expressing negative feelings. They are less welcoming, but
relationships are stronger and loyalties are tighter. Many people I
know in Somerville have friendships that go back to high school, while
I haven't spoken to anyone that I went to high school with for over
forty years.

Personally, I would prefer to live among people who
easily express both positive and negative feelings. Having to conceal
either one makes me feel lonely. But we must deal with the world as we
find it.

One of the reasons that we find the differences in our
world that I have described comes from how and why the people who came
from Europe expanded across this continent. They formed communities
along the East Coast. As within all communities, conflict was
inevitable. The frontier provided a means of escape for those who were
unable to work through the conflicts, or to live with their outcomes.
It offered a new life to those who had messed up their old one, and
opportunity to those who didn't see much opportunity where they were.

As
a group, those who went West were the least integrated into their old
communities, with the least skills in resolving conflicts, building
relationships, and sustaining community. The other side of the West's
celebration of individualism is its yearning for community.

In
community, you are known, and you must find a way to live with those
you have offended. Oddly enough, if you aren't obligated to continually
interact with others, it's easier to be warm toward them. The
consequences of their indifference, or their antagonism to your
overtures, are greatly reduced. There are always others to interact
with.

But strength, trust, and endurance in relationships don't
come from what we have in common. They come from how we deal with our
differences, how we resolve our conflicts.

When the web of
relationships is not strong enough to sustain community, it's easier to
attribute imagined evils to public figures, because you don't know
them. I often disagree strongly with Mayor Curtatone. (See my next
column, for example.) But I can't pretend that he is some cartoon-like
villain, or that his policy choices are willfully malign, because I
know him and find much to like about him.

There are other
differences between here and California. On average, drivers here are
much worse. I attribute this to the relatively lax enforcement of
traffic laws here and the fact that New England cities weren't built to
accommodate the automobile. Within a few years, we will come to
appreciate the latter.

California has rarely experienced the
government corruption that regularly makes news in Massachusetts, and,
per unit of service, government is more costly here. I see this as the
consequence of one party controlling government so long that it becomes
complacent.

Yet for all of the dissatisfactions that I might
express about Somerville, its people are the best. They are honest,
hardworking, loyal, realistic, and funny. We can argue heatedly and
still remember that we like each other.

As I just wrote that, I
remembered one night in the aldermanic chamber after a hearing on
Assembly Square. Steve Post and I were yelling at each other at the top
of our lungs. At some point, I looked at him and felt foolish. I
quietly said, "I'm just so disappointed." The soul of compassion, he
replied, "yeah. I know."