Community Matters
In a world that feels unstable at best and outright hostile and dangerous at worse, my hope for each of us is that we stay connected to our communities in big and small ways. That we reach out and build community with others, finding light in grace and compassion and our shared humanity.
How do you build community? What keeps you connected to community?
These were the questions I was invited to answer in late February for a special edition of The Learning Curve (TLC). I had barely written anything for months, and yet, the topic of community was one I couldn't ignore.
With the impending arrival of a new human in my life, especially amid today's current events, community is often top of my mind.
Community matters to me more than ever because I want my daughter, who arrived a few weeks early in March, to know that she is surrounded by community. By people who have her back, who will fight for her future, and who will show her that love, kindness, compassion, and grace are infinite.
I want her to know she is not alone.
So, I've thought a lot about community in the last ten months. And I've thought about what I can do to be more connected to my own community, and how to grow and strengthen it, for me and for her.
Like everything, I'm still learning and I'm not always good at this. I'm a work-in-progress, but I have big ideas on how to practice community.
And it starts with the smallest circle. Which is how I answered those questions. You can read the answers that TLC collected, including mine, here.
In a world that feels unstable at best and outright hostile and dangerous at worse, my hope for each of us is that we stay connected to our communities in big and small ways. That we reach out and build community with others, finding light in grace and compassion and our shared humanity.
Knowing that community, that connection, is what matters.
Take care of yourself. Take care of your community.
And know that you are, as always, enough.
💚 Alyson
"How we are at the small scale is how we are the large scale…that what we practice at a small scale can reverberate to the largest scale.” - adrienne maree brown
P.S. My heart expanded beyond measure with the arrival of my daughter. As my husband wrote when we shared the news, "one knows that the arrival of a child would change one’s life forever, but one doesn’t know just how much until it happens." We are all doing beautifully, loving on and learning from the most amazing human either of us have ever met. Every day is an adventure, and no two are the same. We are so grateful this little one chose us to be her parents. 💚 ☘️