Community Taking Shape

Community – it’s a word with warm sounding edges and a soft middle. I’ve thought a lot about the word and its meaning over the past few weeks as I’ve moved into a new area where I don’t know anyone. So, how do you find community, anyway? Or does community find us?

In my most beautiful fantasy of community, I imagine it as a place of welcoming and acceptance; a place where you share similar values and likes as the people around you. I think of it as an actual place, like a neighborhood or some sort of center. Is community a place, a feeling, an attitude or all those things? Is it as simple as seeing and being with the same people everyday?

And what about participation? If you’re looking for community, is it helpful to find groups where you share interests, like art or dance? Or can you build community by volunteering, wanting to help, tend and care for others?

Is neighborhood community? The feeling of the people around you having your back and you having theirs? Is it doing things together? And how is community different from a group of casual friendships, or is it?

In this new place I’ve moved I’m acutely aware of the longing for connection. I had pictured myself here getting to know shop owners, having tea at the same place and being welcomed in each time I did. But most of America doesn’t have town centers anymore. The landscape is a sprawl of strip malls connected by highway and anchored by large anonymous box stores like Target, Walmart and Starbucks. Few places are small and cozy, conducive to conversation, so patrons come and go without anyone ever knowing their name.

In my new city of Roseville, I’ve discovered a community gathering place, not what I expected, but a hub, nonetheless. Close to my new home is a large regional park, called Maidu. When you enter the park, the median that divides one side of the road from the other greets you with towering redwoods. They are the sentries, the guardians of this place. From the parking lot you can see a skateboarding area with all kinds of fun and dangerous looking curves that would put this old woman into the hospital, but it’s fun to watch a group of nimble kids ride the walls, nonetheless. On the other side of the parking lot are sports fields, with wide open spaces between them. On weekends, local softball teams play ball and hubby, and I have sat in the stands cheering on total strangers, just for the love of the game. A farmer’s market takes over a corner of the parking lot on Sundays, offering an abundance of summer fruit, fresh herbs, tomatoes and garden squashes.

Beyond the ball fields and soccer fields, bustling this time of year with sports camps, are well groomed trails that wander through thick stands of Oak and open meadows. The city has herds goats grazing to keep the weeds in check. On this trail, I walk my dog, Mickey. A 3.4-mile loop of nature, replete with the occasional flock of turkeys, who share the path. Trail conversations come easily here. There’s a friendliness to sharing the business of walking and connecting with someone as if old friends.

A couple of days ago, the goats disappeared and a woman stopped me and asked, “where are the goats?!” Of course, I had no idea where the goats were, but she went on to talk about the people who tend the goats, about the city government. How there were some issues regarding inflated payment the goat tenders – “and then the goats just disappeared,” she told me, implying that this too, this innocent herd of goats had somehow been politicized. The conversation ended on an upbeat note of “I hope they work it out. I like the goats.” I like the goats too.

When you walk a dog, there’s an opportunity to meet children who will ask to pet the dog. My Labrador retriever is very gentle with kids and happily receives their pets, pats and squeals. Then a conversation ensues with them, or with the parent – all of it civil, kind and welcoming. An unspoken set of shared values connect us for a moment. We like being in this place. We have no problem sharing it with dogs, kids, grown-ups or goats. The peace of the interaction is balm for so much forgotten civility in these times.

After a short while of living here and coming to Maidu, I’ve begun to see the same faces – the team of softball players who are all over the age of seventy-five and play games around the state and the country; the woman who pushes a stroller and holds the leash of a Great Dane who takes his job of watching baby and mom very seriously; the guy with the Golden retriever who chases the large soccer- like ball and paws it back to his owner. Maidu Park isn’t the little coffee shop I’d fanaticized finding, but this is my new community, much larger than I’d anticipated, and it feels good.

The feeling of talking to people face to face, up close and personal strips away anonymity and replaces it with the over-used, under-utilized description of our times, “connection.” We all seek connection. Maybe that’s the ultimate definition of community: a sense of being a part of the human ecosystem that cares about and for one another.

Life is made up of lots of little communities and then the one big community of humankind. In each of us, I believe, is an innate longing belong, to know home as a place that extends beyond our walls and front doors. A sense that outside of our solitary creature comforts is a call to engage with each other, embracing likeness and difference. The touch, the energy of face-to-face, is what I’m curious about, and I want to learn more. How and where do I fit? Is fitting an action we take or just a relaxed stance of warm acceptance?

Maidu Park is an unexpected community center, filled with people who like to walk and take in the surrounding beauty. In this place, I feel at home with the wild turkeys, local softball teams, family dogs, children and those who put on the daily miles.

My friend, Susan Tweit talks about kin being larger than family. What if I held community as not only the kin of human family, but plant- kin, and animal-kin? That feels like where I fit in the most. I’ve been a wanderer most of my life, but this park, these kin feel welcoming to my wandering ways. My new community is filled with goats and daily walkers, with wild turkeys and cloud-streaked skies. From a new and welcoming neighborhood, I travel to this gathering place, a delightful park in which I’ve discovered what feels like the heartbeat of community, a place where people have given themselves permission to be friendly.

What does community feel like and mean to you? Let’s have a conversation.

Dedicated to this friendly Substack community, who never fails to fill my heart and imagination with grace and gratitude. Thank you for being here.