Breaking in Six Degrees

Hallie Garrison

“I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet.”

John Guare, Six Degrees of Separation

I pull in closer to smell the aftershave on the father’s collar, rounding this same corner for the fifth time today.  My bike wheels give a squeak, and I jolt back to the pavement because I’m afraid they’ll notice I don’t actually belong—not here, not to their picnic.  Lately I’ve found myself wanting a refresher course in the art of family making.  A mother, a father, a sibling, or two?  A grandmother, she knits.  A grandfather, he’s quiet, but the aunt (ant or ahnt) is far too rowdy.  Uncles come and go, recover and remarry, such that there are branches and branches and branches of cousins.

Someone remind me when I signed on as head dietitian for the household.  While you’re at it, hand me a paycheck.

We did a nutritional overhaul this summer in the interest of warding off hereditary heart disease, improving our energy levels, and, for Mom, feeling attractive enough to use an online dating site.  The last two failed long-term relationships came to us courtesy of the world wide web as well, but to her, there’s no sense letting a few bad eggs ruin the whole dozen.  They gave us what they could, those bad eggs.  Not entirely bad.  Plus, we’ll make better choices this time.

I believed in being unruly ever since I could read.  To believe and to participate are two separate spheres, you know.  Although the voice of a young Anne Frank spoke to me on a profound level, I didn’t consider myself a rabble-rouser.  I would never dance on the furniture or speak smartly to an elder.  I wouldn’t have dreamed of documenting negative feelings in writing; I felt guilty and superstitious about every ounce of conviction that was underneath the layers of sweet girl, quiet girl, never-lets-out-a-peep-of-insubordination girl.

Don’t get me wrong, I knew the difference between good and evil.  I had standards, but at the top of it all, for me, was politeness.  To the extent that a stranger who crushed the bones of my foot would receive profuse apologies:  “I am so sorry for walking underneath your shoes, ma’am.”  After devouring Frank’s diary, Number the Stars, The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, plays, research papers, photographs, I became convinced that I would not have survived the Holocaust.

Maybe it’s a crisis that every successive generation of Jewish people will go through…what if I had been born 50 years earlier?  What if?  Would I have resigned myself to the discrimination?  Would I have tolerated torture?  Worse, would I have allowed myself to be convinced that I was guilty?

The idols of my childhood had common traits.  They did not stand back and allow mistaken people to tread on their integrity.  Meip Geis did not hang her head and apologize to the Frank family when they requested her aid.  Margot Frank did not succumb to illness in the annex.  Otto Frank did not let the voice of his daughter go unheard.

And Anne.  Anne created.  Anne listened.  She felt and she knew.  Pages.  Words.  “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”  Anne survived so long because those around her believed, and because she believed, in fighting for morality.  To do nothing is to be part of the problem: of at least that much, I’m sure.