Finding Community

When we moved from the city to a rural property during the first wave of the pandemic, I never would have expected how long it took us to find community. We met our neighbours shortly after moving, but with a few acres between houses, you could literally go weeks without seeing anyone around. We even connected with a few home school families that were sadly torn asunder with the polarities of hot bed topics during the pandemic.

But after the first year, motivated by my extroverted youngest son, we decided it was time we take more decided measures and sought out a forest school that felt like a good fit for our unschooling approach to life. It took a number of phone calls and lots of emails before we landed with not one, but two wonderful groups of kids where the youngest could stretch his social muscles and make some good friends.

Those friends have helped us connect with the wider home school community, where we are now part of a co-op that will be hosting weekly meetups in September. Fingers crossed, there seems to be lots of interest and we hope to help build some cost-free alternatives for families in our area, as I’ve recently learned that all the local forest school programs are waiting lists.

For me, I found a good home with the local food co-op, where I volunteer on the board of directors, packing food in the warehouse once a week, and doing community work. This weekend I helped table at a local music festival and met so many wonderful like-minded folks who were eager to help the co-op thrive.

I’ve written about institutions versus community before and I remember feeling so bitter at the time that I were forced to buy into institutions (eg. paying for forest school) when all I really wanted was community (eg. meeting up with friends at the park). While it was a round about route, it ended up that those institutions were actually the pathway to community in the end. Is it always that way? I don’t think so but these days; post-pandemic and late stage capitalism… well maybe paying financially up front it’s the most direct route to finding community without the price tag.

No matter where you are, it seems that connecting to community is hard in a hyper individualistic society. I recently read a great essay from Andy at the Poor Proles Almanac talking about the field of agroecology where he explores, among many other issues, what it might look like to put forward a collect effort to grow food in accordance with the land. After pointing out some problems with the “back to the land” movement of homesteading and it’s reinforcement of this hyper individualism, he suggests some solutions on how we might work as a collective with the land to grow and farm according to the principles of agroecology.

In a forested area for example, a community might seek to develop a series of interconnected nut orchards with shared machinery (with trees spaced widely enough for the machinery to access) and seasonal cooperative burns to keep the landscape open. These orchards might allow livestock to graze in a modified form of pastoralism, and have hunters cull overpopulated deer and share the meat collectively alongside the produce from the orchards.

Beautiful, yes? In standard format, I start dreaming about how I might help contribute to this idyllic vision or make it happen, but I hit a wall when I realize that I will likely be met with rejection when it comes to property, collective ownership, and division of labour. Other people just aren’t as interested in this vision, especially when it’s not instantly or visibly profitable.

Communal activities like growing food or collective childcare are hard because you need a community. Communities are made up of people with a common goal, but when everyone is either tunnel visioned on “getting ahead” or totally burnt out from the grind, find those other people can be hard to do.

Rant incoming: But, oh my god, why is it this hard? Why is finding people who want to share this fucking hard? Like, aren’t we supposed to be living this way; supporting each other and sharing the load? Where are all these hands that are supposed to make the work light? What is this village that it apparently takes and where can I find it?

This isn’t a poor-me rant. This is a poor-us rant. Our poor kids and our poor aging parents and all the poor people who keep falling out the bottom of this economic system because someone always needs to lose in order for someone else to win.

Okay, let me step back to gratitude for the community I’ve found because that was where I was supposed to be heading with all this. As I said, I’m not sure if the pay-to-play institution to community pipeline was what I was really after, but I will say that I do think the fastest and easiest way to find community is to look for an organization or non-profit who is doing work you find valuable and volunteer with them. This has proven to work for me in more than one case, and if you’re feeling isolated (aren’t we all?), it’s a wonderful way to meet folks who are also looking for connection.

And that feels like a pretty good place to start.