Everybody needs a Tribe

One Tribe....however many months ago I heard that Black Eyed Peas song on a Coca Cola commercial, it spoke to me. I've played it in my yoga classes, danced around my living room to it, sang it at the top of my lungs while driving around with my kids in the car and contemplated why I keep coming back to the lyrics. I love it. I love the rhythm, but I think most of all I love the message.
Two weekends ago, our family made a 3 1/2 hour journey north to spend the weekend with my sister in law and celebrate her daughter/my niece's 6th birthday. My sister-in-law's boyfriend, who happens to be a college buddy of my husband, lives there and so we descended upon his bachelorhood with our 2 families, 5 kids in all, to play for a couple of days. We left Yakima in a good space. Getting ready to go on our car trips with 3 kids under the age of 5 is not always a stress-less experience. Sometimes, my husband and I get snappy at each other, short with the kids as we are trying to pack, or plop them in front of the television so we can get it all together, and that is never a good way to start 3 hours in the car. But, this time, we did something right, got out the door all smiling and away we went. About 20 minutes into the car ride my 3 year old son throws up, in the back of our "bad ass minivan". I climb back there just as I see something not good is about to happen and it begins. I have nothing to catch it in but my hands (true love of a mother, who else would I catch puke for?) and am shouting to my husband that we will have to stop and I need help. It just keeps coming and its all over him and the car seat. Yuck. So much for our great start to the trip. We pull off on the side of the road and I am almost laughing at the comedy of it all, Ruby has her pillow over her head looking out the window, away from barf boy and she knows if she sees or smells it she will be next in line. A strong stomach is not one of her gifts. Baby Elsie is asleep, I think, I can't quite remember. I am using the better part of the a pack of baby wipes, thank God for baby wipes, trying to clean Will up as he cries saying "I'm all yucky." Poor boy. Cars and semi-trucks are speeding past us at 75 mph and I'm scared a little, feel like we are not in the safest of locations. (By the way, at this point, this post has nothing to do with a tribe, just a funny little tidbit about the journey. I'll get back to the tribe, I promise.) Willis sleeps for the remainder of the trip, we don't even stop once. Ruby listens to music and we all take a deep sigh, knowing something better is waiting for us at the end of the road.
We arrive north, Okanogan, to be exact. We have a great host and spend Saturday recovering from our drive and Sunday morning preparing for the party that afternoon. 3 p.m. rolls around and here is where the tribe comes in...my sister-in-law's boyfriend has a tribe up north, and they all come for the birthday party. By the end of the evening, I was struck by how comfortable I felt with these people, most of whom I had just met, how easy in my skin I felt with strangers. And so true to form, I wrote about it.
What is a tribe? A group of people who share a common history, love each other, watch out for each other, help each other out, love on one another's kids and set healthy boundaries for them as well, eat together, play together, laugh together and remind each other what it feels like to be living, being without doing. I loved it. Everybody needs a tribe. It gives us a sense of belonging, accountability, guidance when we need it, support, a sense that we are not alone. I think tribes make us better people. And the beauty of it is that our tribes are really all one. If someone in my tribe is part of your tribe, than we are part of the same tribe, too, because we are part of that mutual friends' tribe and pretty soon there is no your tribe, my tribe. We are all just one. At least in my optimistic happy day, we can be all one.