I’ve been thinking about the idea of community a lot lately, for a variety of reasons. Today I attended a No Kings rally in town. I carpooled with a group of women ranging from people I’ve known since my kids were babies, to women I’ve taught their kids, to women I’ve met only at random parties and couldn’t normally pick out of a crowd. We gathered in an old minivan and drove to the rally to stand together with our community to protest the evil in the White House. I saw my neighbors there, a few coworkers, parents of kids I’ve taught, my own kids’ old babysitter, former colleagues, and so many other faces I knew or at least recognized from somewhere. People I haven’t thought of in awhile and people I think of almost daily, all gathering together to protest our current political situation. It made me realize how rare it is these days that we gather together as a community. Other than farmer’s markets and the annual Block Party in town, both of which I don’t go to now that the kids are older, there are no other times that large numbers of people come together. Those events, and No Kings rallies. It’s interesting and kind of sad.
I’ve been thinking about community at lot at work as well. When I worked at school I felt very involved in my community. I taught at the school my kids and neighbors attended. I knew everyone involved in the school community. I knew my neighbors with kids. I knew parents, teachers, school advocates, and, of course, lots and lots of kids.
Now that I’m no longer working in the school, and my kids are no longer in the district, I’m feeling a real loss of community. I’m still tangentially connected through my website and newsletter work, but that’s a loose community at best. And while I enjoy my public library job, it’s in a different community with a lot less people contact, so I feel like I’m not part of the community in the same ways I have been before. I’m now working in a community I don’t live in, my kids never attended, and a community that has a very different ethos and norms than Hartford. I have very little patron contact, so that further limits my community engagement.
I’m not complaining here, just observing. I have multiple friend groups, at work, and outside of work, and I’m not lonely, but somehow, simultaneously, I am feeling a lack of community recently, a lack of shared values and goals. I’ve been sitting with this feeling, weighing it against the world and my choices in life. I have no actionable goals here, for now, just observing and feeling. Lots of feelings these days. So many feeling. LOL. (Now that my job is calm and the kids are away, I have plenty of time to sit with feelings!)
