Community

There is so much talk about community. Building community, nurturing it, finding like-minded people to share this virtual connection we now access whenever we hit "Send" or "Post" from whatever device we have in our hands. I'm a big participant in my community of online friends. I know many personally across a spectrum of time.


Others I've never looked in the eye, yet they inspire me.


After many years as an in-house PR Director, I'm now out on my own. The silence of a home office is a salve in many ways, but I miss my most recent and very tight community at AFAR: my pod-mates who made me laugh, whose editing skills were always available, and whose dedication to making a beautiful product is true. They routinely made a day at work better and even dried my tears on an occasion or two.  (It's okay to cry at work, people.)

And now, working from a home office, I have a small window of dedicated hours to actually walk around the block.

When we first moved into our neighborhood in Palo Alto, we knew very few people. Our friends who had lived here for 25 years introduced us to the locals and we immediately felt welcome. Our neighbors over the fence welcomed us, dropping off flowers and kaffir lime leaves and throwing balls for Graeme into our garden.

A neighborhood camp ensued, followed by Kindergarten, and we began to know more and more families in our community.

Ever so naturally, it has all started to gel. When we walk the dog around the block, we're routinely invited in to play or to have a brief exchange on the street. We know each others' names.

Yesterday our neighbor smoked a chicken for us, as he did for many others in the neighborhood. Graeme played at that house almost all day, the smell of smoke in his hair when he came home. As a thank you, he delivered warm cornbread to them via scooter at dinner time.




It sounds idyllic. It is. And it's also true. You get what you give in this world, and I'm not giving up on the power of true, face-to-face community. As long as you mean it.