Community

60: (November 2019)

Thanksgiving was a study in chaos this year. Our house expanded from me and my husband to our four grown children and their families, including two toddlers and a dog for the week. Add nine additional family members who joined us for the holiday and it’s safe to say that we filled every square inch of our home. How fortunate we were.

How fortunate to have grown children and extended family members who flew in from other countries and from around the U.S. during the busiest travel week of the year to spend time together. On top of that, my step daughter-in-law is quite pregnant with a baby girl whom we will all be eager to meet shortly after the New Year; how fortunate we were to share this time of anticipation together.

Was it a whirlwind? Absolutely. Washing dishes, grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning were constant. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t stressed out trying to get Thanksgiving dinner on the table for more people than I’ve ever cooked for in my life at one time. But everyone pitched in with generosity, and we all sat down to the meal in one room that was jam packed with every chair in the house. How fortunate we were to have so many people we love all in one room. All healthy, safe, and well fed. There were too many blessings to count.  

Some are already on their way home. Some will be with us for another few days. We will cherish each moment. As my step-son said to me earlier in the week, “The visits are always too short—it would be so nice to be here long enough to get bored together on a Saturday afternoon!” I know what he means. It would be so wonderful to be able to experience day-to-day life together, to really unwind and just be together without necessarily doing anything. But careers and adventures have taken our four collective children to different parts of the country and the world, so we’ll join together when we can for holidays and special occasions.

And so we are grateful for the two year olds romping through the house with firetrucks and stuffed animals. For the grown children who sit around the table piecing together jigsaw puzzles, making meals together in the kitchen, and laughing around the woodstove. I am profoundly grateful for these times.  

With that, I’m off to do another load of laundry.

40: (November 1999)

I am in the car a lot. I drive the children to school, music, dance, and horse riding lessons; friends’ homes; doctor appointments; and to the food store, gas station, meetings, church, and so on. Driving, driving, driving.

While behind the wheel one day, I fantasized about what would happen if we had to do without our cars and rely on our own very small, local community for the general needs of day-to-day life, like food, shelter, school, and entertainment. I thought about the 15 houses on my road and realized what a wide variety of experience there is among those who live here: teachers, construction workers, writers, a photographer, computer whizzes, stay-home mothers, a day care owner, a volunteer ambulance worker, retired people, and a good handful of people I have never met and have no idea about. There are young, old, middle-aged, and brand new people. People who are Catholics, Congregationalists, Unitarians, Buddhists, Jehovah Witnesses, and people who belong to no religion at all. People in ill health, people in good health. Hard workers, all, as I see it.

What gifts could we bring to each other if we really got to know each other, if we were forced to forge a deeply connected community? We already live in a small town with a strong sense of community, but that is a relative term. What if we had to depend on each other for day-to-day life? What would we do with all the time we normally spend in our cars? What would the pace of life feel like? What levels of understanding would we reach about our neighbors, family members, and ourselves?

We might all participate in teaching our children, and we might become more aware of what they can teach us. Perhaps there would be a greater intimacy and appreciation of nature as we trod upon the earth with our feet rather than with vehicles, allowing us to see the beauty before our eyes, rather than focus on traffic and road signs. We would get more exercise, consume fewer natural resources, and produce less waste. Food would be more highly valued and respected if we had to eat primarily what we could grow and share with each other.

Part of me longs to experience that, if even for a brief time. But lest my neighbors begin to panic and run to bolt their doors, don’t worry! I am not giving up my car . . . yet.

60-40:

My extended family is a micro-community that comes together for brief periods of time, but it is always right there in my heart, every minute of every day. Those loved ones sustain me. They are my reason for living.

The community I live in day to day is a community forged over 28 years of living in my small, rural town. Despite the driving, I have gotten to know many people, and do indeed appreciate this community, which has a deeply special place in my heart. I love the fact that I have friends and acquaintances sprinkled throughout the town—people with whom I share the everyday stuff of life.

In a few days all the visiting family members will have flown back to their respective homes. The gratitude will remain, the love will be felt with each heartbeat. Life will go on in my small town. I am indeed blessed.