Cumulus: Focus on the Mission

In just 34 days I will leave for Istanbul, Turkey, to start the Sister City process with them. That is our purpose in this trip, making initial contact in the interest of joining Pittsfield, MA, with Istanbul as Sister Cities. In preparing for this trip over the past few months, I've had to focus on getting my musical and performance skills up to snuff to hold my own in a highly skilled jazz band. I'm not nearly the musician the rest of them are, especially in the jazz realm, and I don't want to let them down. So I've studied and stewed and practiced and panicked and gotten enough better that I feel fairly confident of carrying my weight in the musical sense.

So then I started to get nervous about the actual travel part: navigating unfamiliar airports; spending several hours confined to a coach seat on a plane, not sleeping (I can't sleep sitting up or in moving vehicles); being in strange surroundings while jet-lagged; having to perform and be engaging while in this foreign, disorienting state. I've known for a long time that I have autistic tendencies (confirmed by my high score on the Autistic Spectrum Quotient test), and those tendencies are aggravated by fatigue, stress, a radical change in environment, and sensory overstimulation. Lack of sleep, jet-lag, foreign city, foreign language, crowds, traffic, loud noises, bright lights—I'm looking at total autistic meltdown! OK, so in my case that's not a severe reaction, not like many who suffer from much more extreme forms of autism. But it's still scary, and embarrassing. I go blank, can't talk, get stupid, hate to be touched, look like a deer in the headlights, withdraw into psychical if not physical isolation. Out of my own vanity and pride, I don't want my bandmates to see me that way. Out of concern for them and our mission in Istanbul, I don't want to let them down by performing poorly and, well, being a total drag.

But I've traveled a number of times in foreign lands and been just fine. And I love to see new places and learn new things and eat new foods (and Turkish food is fabulous!). And I really don't know if my autistic tendencies will be triggered enough to be visible to anyone else (besides James, who recognizes them well after so many years together). So, rather than descend into a morass of anxiety about what MIGHT happen and how frustrating and embarrassing it MIGHT be, for me and everyone with me, I choose now to focus instead on our purpose for going to Istanbul in the first place, a purpose that I'm passionately committed to, committed enough to risk autistic discomfort. Person-to-person peacemaking. Communicating with strangers through the common language of music. Making connections across barriers of geography, culture, politics, and everything else that gets in our way, simply by being with people in a shared experience of joy.

Sister Cities International puts it this way:

Mission Statement
Promote peace through mutual respect, understanding, & cooperation — one individual, one community at a time.

Goals
Sister Cities International is a nonprofit citizen diplomacy network that creates and strengthens partnerships between U.S. and international communities. We strive to build global cooperation at the municipal level, promote cultural understanding and stimulate economic development.

Sister Cities International is a leader for local community development and volunteer action. We motivate and empower private citizens, municipal officials and business leaders to conduct long-term sister city programs. We believe that sister city programs involve two-way communication and should mutually benefit partnering communities.

Our goals are to:

Develop municipal partnerships between U.S. cities, counties, and states and similar jurisdictions in other nations.

Provide opportunities for city officials and citizens to experience and explore other cultures through long-term community partnerships.

Create an atmosphere in which economic and community development can be implemented and strengthened.

Stimulate environments through which communities will creatively learn, work, and solve problems together through reciprocal cultural, educational, municipal, business, professional and technical exchanges and projects.

Collaborate with organizations in the United States and other countries which share similar goals.