Hatred and Courtesy

I wrote this a few years back when I worked in a grocery/pharmacy. It was one of my first "big boy jobs," meaning one not on a campus of some kind. I had a lot of time to think in that kind of mechanical job, where it only requires scanning bar codes, bagging items and giving change.

I thought about the things we teach kid right from the beginning of their being able to speak: please, thank you, you're welcome. And how these little graces are a lubricant that keeps everyone's self-interest and selfishnes from rubbing up against everybody else's self-interest and selfishness.

Especially in the South, where I spent a lot of time growing up, these kinds of outward signs of deference and politeness are there almost by design to keep dislike and social stresses from bubbling to the surface. It's the only place I know of where "bless their heart" can soften literally any gossip or slander. ("Lord knows she's the biggest whore this side of Texas, bless her heart.")

I feel a lot of it also has to do with racial stresses, and the veneer of courtesy serves both to hide outward signs of that divide even as it provides a makeshift framework to allow a deeply wounded and distrustful society to function.

It's not at all a bad thing: in the U.S. anyone can joke or make small talk with other people in line at the bank or grocery store. But it can literally take years of relationship-building to move past the surface and into someone's thoughts and emotions. In eastern Europe the common greeting in a store is, "I'm listening." (Meaning, whaddya want and get out of here.) But it's a very fast process to become a part of someone's life and circle of friends, especially in a society where hospitality and gift-giving are a hallmark of cultured behavior.

So this poem about the dance of courtesy and outward signs of respect doesn't really get into those areas, but that's the place it came from.

"This delicate dance we do..."

Matt Quarterman

This delicate dance we do -
contrived, surely, the steps long set
(a pavane perhaps, or a courtly step),
but the emotion shines through
in unexpected moments.
And there is still, as always,
some limited freedom in the moves.

The reverential hush dancers
hold their bodies in
is fitting for even such a
commonplace routine.
At its best, these exchanges
are proof enough of grace,
where artifical courtesy can keep
violent transactions in their place.

As we brush past each other
with a nod and a bow,
these social graces may be
more than elegance
and give even these mundane exchanges
some hint, however removed,
of the holy.