Finding Community

Ever moved? Ever? Well, I think 90% of people I know and love have, and of those, probably another 90% have moved at least a 2 hours drive (although most at least a 2 hour flight) from whatever they considered their childhood home. Okay, my network is not a random sample, and technically I didn’t even count up all my friends and measure their geographic distance from point of origin. It just feels like 90%. And for even the remaining 10% (which may be an over-estimate), they’ve certainly been affected by an exodus of friends and family moving away from their hometown. What does it mean, all this relocating? All these moving companies and having to find new post offices and grocery stores and dry-

cleaners and hair stylists and mechanics and friends.

It means excitement, right? The new job, the new partner, the new adventure that beckoned, that said, “move here! It’s better over here, this new place!” It promises upward movement; new opportunity, growth. The experience of discovery, of donning new fashions, assuming new customs, trying new food. It means saying “hello” in a new way; of finding new challenges and seeing new views.

It also means saying goodbye, for however long, to old places, deep-rooted friendships, navigating effortlessly through familiar streets, to knowing how to order what’s not listed on the menu, to secret haunts and town traditions, to the predictable. To loved ones, to easy, face-to-face conversation or wordless activities. To people that you trust with your kids, that will cat-sit and water your plants and fetch your mail. To going to parties where you know more than one person, and they know you; to grapevines. To community.

Where has community gone, in this present time of ours? Where does it inevitably spring up? Online, social-networking? Sure, in some ways, and I would argue that these forums are a resource beyond just emotional support. But they can’t replace, can’t substitute for handshakes and hugs, for brownies that a neighbor brings by, for help shoveling out cars in the winter and sharing bbq in the summer. It does happen, again and again, that new ties form and relationships start and in my narrow academic/military experience, I’ve encountered incredible instances of spontaneous community-making. Even when that community consists of only two people, or two families. It happens, and it is such a beautiful thing to meet someone or some people and feel that you have known them your whole life.

But, I fear and feel that there’s an underlying loneliness to these times, too, and I think it’s one that most of us see, all too often. I’m not just talking about the protoypical lonely person; the older widow or widower image that we all assume must be lonely. I’m talking about the antisocialism we all encounter in our cars; the anonymity of the majority of our business transactions; the being in a crowded cafe, bus stop, or even cocktail party and feeling that lack of real connection. Is this the way of humans, or is this the way of the human globalized and networked and en masse?

The thing is, though, in these times (read always) there is always the chance to connect. There is always a back-story to every encounter. We notice, and we are noticed. There’s the neighbor who’s name I still don’t know who left baby pajamas and a toy on my doorstop after G was born. There’s my other neighbor (and now dear friend) who constantly brings us over brownies and adores watching our cat whenever we go out of town. There’s the friends who connect you with other friends until all of sudden your husband is playing in a random band with someone’s friend’s husband’s wife’s husband. There’s the UPS deliveryman that you never realized always delivered the endless Amazon packages at your door who finally meets you and asks about your baby and reveals that his wife was also pregnant, but that they lost their little boy. Who you realized, was waiting to make a connection with you, but you weren't home before when he dropped off all those boxes of diapers. Who was waiting to look you in the eye and wish your family well.

There are true souls out there, who want out companionship, who are hoping for connection, under all that busy-ness and stress. Don’t we all? I think community is as alive as it ever was, it just looks a little different than it may have in the past. It’s online, yes, but it’s also down the street. It’s in the churches and temples and at the few remaining mom-and-pops’, but it’s also at Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks and Target. It’s in the little attempts we make; the holding the door, the unbidden greeting, the smile, the briefest of looks of understanding.

It’s bringing that neighbor who you keep running into but won’t look you in the eye homemade cookies that your 3-year-old made and decorated; who couldn’t that melt?

It’s there; community always was and always will be.

Su, this is dedicated to you.