Small Talk and Other US Norms

I first thought people were cold and distant, especially when entering shops and cafés, because they didn't engage in friendly chatter (small talk). Now I understand that it's more cultural than I imagined!

Learning about the culture of a country can be daunting and it very often remains at a superficial level. However, it's useful to have an idea of what to expect if you're contemplating visiting a country. 

So here's are  ten things you should know about the USA:

Ten Things You've Got to Know about US Culture

Ferns and Fragile Things

Sagebrush is such a cool plant, so tough, so strong. I mean, who wouldn't want to say that she's a sagebrush, a badass plant? Regardless of hot furnace-like winds, she holds her own and gives some back, even making cowboys and ranchers wear chaps and thick gloves. I have tried, most of my life, to be a sagebrush, but, I'm not. Instead, I was a born little, an untimely runt.

My parents were 19 and other than following the social norms of the times, which mostly meant marriage some months before my birth, they were on the whole, unprepared, totally. Neither could handle the commitment of marriage, that included jobs, in-laws, and a myriad of skills, not to mention a baby, and they went their separate ways when I was just two months old. Decades later, I still revisit the sentiment that's followed me throughout my life; a fatherless daughter is a very vulnerable being.

My mother went into labor prematurely, when I was quite tiny, just 6lbs.4oz. The hospital staff had been ordered to wait the doctor's return In those days that's what they did. So, when my mother's contractions increased and I began to travel down the birth canal, the nurses clamped my mother's legs together to stop my early arrival, something they weren't able to do, and something that would be criminal today. I was finally born, a little girl to my father's chagrin, and weak with compromised lungs. Breathe, baby just breathe.

Breathing has ailed me all my life; asthma, bedrest, modified PE, and assorted respiratory illnesses that plague me each winter with the common cold. Sometimes I just forget to breathe in general, like I'm not really living , and so I have to remind myself. Breathe, baby, breathe.

So, very clearly, I'm definitely not a sagebrush, the rugged stuff of fighting lore. It's taken me almost fifty years to accept it.

No, I'm wonderfully something else, altogether. It's taken me all my life to understand, accept and love something different about myself, and it's this: I'm a fern! A fern, that in warm light and in forest mist delicately unfolds its lovely fronds towards the sun and sky. Ferns are unique with two separate living structures, the sporophyte and the gametophyte – both free living. When I draw, I love to draw ferns. I love ferns' uniqueness. When I visit the nursery, my favourite area is the ferns, so lush, so green, an ancient throwback to the primordial. Yes, I'm frail, a quiet observer, fragile, but I'm stable. I've been around a fossil-long time. I'm a tenacious survivor. I embrace that I'm a fern.