Short and sweet today. I am grateful for community.

I was out late, gathered with a group of neighbor women for Book Club. A few of us snagged the adorable yurt that one of our local restaurants dreamt up when off-season outdoor dining finally got its moment last Fall and Winter as our gathering place for the evening, and a few that couldn’t make it in person joined us virtually.

When our world shut down, these women became my daily connections at a time that was so isolating and scary. Community has always been important to me, but I’ve never appreciated it more than during quarantine when our worlds all contracted enough to make us see the gifts of our neighborhood. We battled through virtual schooling together; we laughed and cried (sometimes simultaneously) at the impossibility of it all. We shared groceries and cocktail recipes. We threw impromptu birthday parties for each other outdoors, no matter the season. We saw each other through health scares and new home purchases. We stumbled through it, and it was doable because we did it together.

Having grown up in a rural area where community was so tight-knit and omnipresent for my first two decades and having lived in the heart of a big city for the next two, I had always believed that a trade-off for city living was less community. I’m so grateful to say that I was wrong, and I’m also thankful that despite the fact that the pace of our lives has sped up over these last few months, we’re still finding opportunities to gather and break bread. It feels so hopeful to celebrate the challenges we’ve overcome, but I never want to lose that renewed sense of connection with the faces we’re fortunate to see and commune with every single day.