The Agony And The Ecstasy Of Community
We need other people. And other people have needs too.
Hello friends.
I spent last weekend on retreat with my women’s circle.
I officially joined this circle at the outset of the pandemic, but my friendships with many of the women go back a decade plus. In that time, we’ve seen each other through all of the things: marriages, babies, work successes, creative accomplishments, spiritual quests, illness, divorce, the decline and death of parents, and in one particular case, being a heart-lung specialist in a New York City hospital at the height of COVID. We’ve lifted each others’ spirits, connected with nature, created rituals for healing and manifestation, celebrated milestones, danced, wept, laughed, sang, fed each other cake and wine—and that was just this past weekend.
There’s a loneliness epidemic in America. So I’m especially grateful that in the past few years, my life has been opening up, not just in family and one-on-one friendships, but into communities. I can see all the ways that this expansiveness is a function of privilege; of time; of money, which buys time when you have kids; of sanity.
Besides the women’s circle, I’m part of a large writers’ group; a smaller, weekly accountability group; a Burning Man camp with dozens of members across the country; I’m on a professional women’s listserv with hundreds of members; I’m in cahoots with a few of the other moms at my younger daughter’s school, some neighbors, and a citywide coalition of people, all of us working for greener schools; I’m a member at Lab/Shul; and then there’s all my collaborators across Climate Mental Health Network, This Is Planet Ed, and the wider worlds of climate and writing.
Ironically, it was during the pandemic, over Zooms and group chats, that I really started to feel the importance and role of community as distinct from friendship. Individual friendships based on affinity, history, and shared interests are really, really important to me, and they bloom within communities as well.
But in the high stress of COVID, when working parents were struggling with childcare and single people with isolation, it could feel hard to reach out to individuals for support. Any one person might be too overwhelmed to respond, and you might feel like a burden for asking. The groups, for me, were the answer — collectively, we could provide care and support to each other in a way that felt like a lower lift. Many hands, light work.
Parents and caregivers inherently know the importance of having a village.
Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt Hendrix have a new book out arguing for cultivating “solidarity” in service of the society and democracy we want to see: “a solidarity state would experiment with creative ways of fostering connection and participation at every opportunity for more Americans.”
Research from the business world tells us that it’s our “weak ties,” not our family and close friendships, that lead to more personal opportunities. This may be especially true in areas of rapid innovation and change.
And then there’s the simple fact that communities, when united by shared purpose, can accomplish more than people on their own or in smaller groups. When people ask
“what can I do as an individual to fight the climate crisis?” He likes to answer “be a little less of an individual. “ Or in the words of anthropologist Margaret Mead:
Community is beautiful. It’s necessary.
And sometimes it’s fucking hard. It’s HARD to be with other people. Especially when you go deep, you’re guaranteed to rub up against your own edges. Other people have opinions, needs, judgments, insecurities, moments of weakness. So do I, it turns out. Other people have different strengths and perspectives, which is the inherent magic of collaboration. But that often means you tend to notice and value different things too, and have different communication styles.
One on one, it feels more possible, though not always easy, to talk things through and work things out. In groups, conflicts can ricochet around. People choose sides, repeat and twist stories around, square off or withdraw into their corners.
Me, I love solitude. Growing up, reading in a tree was my happiest place. Magnolia or live oak, preferably; crepe myrtle in a pinch.
I identified as an introvert, an observer, my whole life. I grew up in a place where I felt very different from people around me. I eventually found work where the job was to sit and listen, take notes and make judgments, go back to my room and only then write down what I really think.
Now I’m suddenly in all these groups. I get so high off the sense of belonging, at long long last. And it feels awkward. I’m actively learning and growing, figuring out how far I can stretch to find common ground without losing my center, intuiting when it’s my chance to lead, my turn to speak, and when to make room and invite others in. How to listen, how to give a little more than I get and still make it feel like a win-win, when to stop texting and say it face to face, when to drop it and move on. I’m standing back to back to block the wind, I’m holding hands around the fire, I’m harmonizing on the major third.
I’d like to know:
How do communities show up in your life? How do you show up for community?
I’m going to end with these lines by Marge Piercy, from the poem The Low Road, which never fail to choke me up.
Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.
It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again and they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean,
and each day you mean one more.
Bonus links
The New York Times reports on climate cafes.
South Sudan closes schools in preparation for a heatwave, with temperatures reaching 113 degrees.
Harrowing reporting on the drought in Afghanistan. A young mother sold her kidney to spare her four year old daughrer being taken to pay off their debts; an eight year old girl was “married” off. Globally, research links climate change to a rise in child marriage, aka child sex slavery.
Climate futurist
, whose work I’ve followed for a decade plus, is quoted in the title of this week’s This American Life episode: we are “Unprepared For What Has Already Happened.” They missed the chance to do an episode or segment about climate change, though.