As I reflect on the past month or so, and all the celebrating we have done in the lead up to the holidays – celebrating my birthday, surviving Halloween (!), enjoying Thanksgiving, and sharing in several office events, I find myself thinking a lot about community.  On my birthday, I felt a tremendous sense of belonging and connectedness. I was surrounded by family and friends and well wishes all day. I felt I mattered and I felt loved. It was wonderful to feel that I had built a community that could share in my celebrations. On Halloween, a week later, I was tangibly aware of my local neighborhood community, when my kids tore around the streets in the dark and were met with nothing but smiles, candy and well wishes. It was an arduous night in some ways (parents of young kids will agree, I’m sure), but I was struck by the warmth, generosity and kindness of our neighbors, and the general camaraderie and cheer that filled the brisk autumn night air. Thanksgiving was a very quiet time for us, without any big events or family gatherings, but wonderfully restorative and a great reminder of the importance of spending time with our little family of four. All the office events over the last month or so have been rather different, but colleagues too are a part of our community, our network, the people in our daily lives. We got to know them, built connections, and found common ground. We celebrated belonging to an electric group of pioneers, who have traveled, read, and explored deeply.

All this got me thinking about what community really means, and why it matters. We’ve all heard the expression, ‘It takes a village to raise a child’. I would argue, it also takes a village to sustain an adult.  According to Psychology Today, ‘a sense of belonging to a greater community improves your motivation, health, and happiness’. Community helps you feel connected to others and reminds you that you are not alone in your struggles. This can be very comforting, and generally tends to make you feel better. (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pieces-mind/201403/create-sense-belonging). When I look back at all the times I have moved from one place to another in my life, it was the building of a community that changed the place from strange new city to something like home.

The first move I made on my own, not as a result of my parents’ restlessness, was a bold move from Cape Town, South Africa, to a town called Kure, near Hiroshima, Japan. It was certainly very challenging in many ways, from being illiterate again, to suffering the vagaries of Japanese weather and cuisine. But it was bearable because I had a sort of instant community among other newcomers who were there for the same reason. I quickly met two other young women around my own age, one from Canada, one from California, who became my family during that year we shared being foreign. In spite of being noticeably different from most of the people around us, we had a feeling of belonging or membership amongst ourselves. We were often alone in our separate towns, teaching kids of different ages at very different schools, getting desperately lost in translation. But we knew that an understanding ear was just a call or a weekend visit away. The experience we shared created an emotional connection which sustained us when we felt lost and alone.  There were others in my community too – other teachers I met along the way, predecessors full of wisdom and anecdotes, my Japanese supervisor who took great pains to support and mentor me, Japanese teachers who tried to interpret the intricacies of their ancient language for me, staff at my schools, and many more. This community made my year in Japan memorable, rich, and a lot less lonely and difficult.

The next time I moved a great distance was several years later, when I accompanied my (then not yet) husband to California. It should have been easier than moving to Japan. I could read road signs, I could speak to strangers, I could interpret the bus schedule and get around town. And yet, it was harder. Mainly because I had no one. My (now) husband was off traveling for work – the job that had given us the opportunity to move to California – within a matter of days after our arrival. And I was completely alone. I stayed with friends of his, who were incredibly kind, but it was somewhat awkward once he left. I soon found an apartment and began building IKEA furniture. Alone. And wandering the streets, taking in the breathtaking beauty of San Francisco. Alone. Having a sense that you matter, or influence, is a very important part of feeling happy and valued or valuable. And it was hard to muddle along without that. No one understood who I was or what I could do, or had done, in my own right. And I had no community of my own to validate me. That first year in the USA, was one of the most difficult years of my life.

And now, as I am about two and half years into my most recent move (to Colorado), and celebrating many high days here, in gorgeous autumn weather, I feel tremendous gratitude for the community that I have around me. I am very happy that I have a community around me where I live, because on a day to day basis, that support really matters. Whether it is the impromptu coffee with a couple of moms from school one morning, or the afternoon with kids running wild and parents sharing a moment of understanding, or the dinner with the smart, interesting women who are now in my life – these are the interactions that make life more manageable, more meaningful, and so much richer. Thank you all for being part of my daily life!

In addition to these wonderful people I have found in Colorado, I have a wider community that reaches to Japan, San Francisco, London, Spain, Australia, and of course South Africa. I have realized that I am fortunate enough to have a community that is not only local, but also global. I received birthday messages from friends far and wide, and really felt beautiful connections that stretched to people and places I seldom see, but have not lost. I have friends and family in these far away places that I still care about and want to have in my life. People I want to find ways to see and spend time with and stay connected to. Because they make me feel good about being me. They share some part of my history and context.  They enrich my life. And hopefully in some small way I do the same for them.

And without these connections, both local and global, how would we all manage to raise families, go to work, cook meals, and stay (somewhat) sane? We all need a sense of belonging, of being part of a community or group, of being on a path others have walked, rather than lone travelers on an empty road. We all need daily conversations, however brief or interrupted; interactions with other people along the way, whether just the guy serving your coffee or another mom wrangling kids or a colleague or dear friend. We all need help sometimes – someone to talk to, someone to pick up kids, someone to make dinner, or pick up some milk. We can’t do it all alone. Community sustains us, and supports us, both practically and spiritually.

In today’s fragmented, high speed, transient world, achieving a sense of belonging, of being part of a meaningful community, of connecting deeply with others – can be challenging. But for me, life without community, is far too hard and lonely. So I will keep working on building community around me and my family, so that we may have a village to share in our trials, joys, and special days. 

 

* As I was writing this, and thinking about the importance of community, I stumbled on an article in The Community Manager which talks about four factors that are required to create a community. I found these ideas rather pertinent and aligned with my thinking, so I have provided a brief overview of the four factors here and I have marked their terms in bold as they appear in my story. The first factor is membership, a feeling of belonging. The second factor is influence, which is a sense that you matter, or your opinions and ideas matter, and is a mutual feeling among group members. It can be hard to have this sense of being heard as a mom! I recognize that it is one of the things I miss most about a professional environment where I had skills, training, and insights that were valuable and appreciated by my colleagues. The third factor is integration and fulfillment of needs, a sense that the community does something for you or helps you in some way, and fulfill the expectations you had of being a member. If membership in a community is not rewarding, members will tend to drift away. The reward, at least for me, may be as simple as sharing your story and experiences and knowing that others do not judge you, or that you are not alone. The fourth and final factor, and perhaps the most critical, is shared emotional connection. (http://thecommunitymanager.com/2013/11/19/the-psychology-of-communities-4-factors-that-create-a-sense-of-community/)