Building community is more than hosting block parties and managing emergency phone trees. It’s about working on yourself.
by Christina Ammon
Some time ago, I assembled a little altar on my bookshelf. It’s nothing religious—just a collection of travel-themed curios: A vial of apricot-colored sand collected from the Sahara Desert, a blessing scarf from a Nepali monk, a dish of Milagro charms procured from Mexico. Every trinket on the shelf serves to remind me of the magic and serendipity of travel.
I haven’t added anything to the alter in while. I recently accepted a job in local tourism, and life has taken a settled turn. These days, I’m more often in the role of the host than the nomad. Plus, I acquired a piece of land which requires a lot of tending. Now, instead of learning the stops of the London Underground, or the names of Himalayan peaks, I learn the name of the trees, plants and birds that populate my yard: Miner’s Lettuce, Acorn Woodpeckers, Madrone.
Becoming part of a community has been a satisfying—but not an entirely comfortable—transition. To the altar, I recently added a potted plant to represent rootedness. Then I tucked a feather in the soil. For flight.
During my 20 years of traveling, people often remarked on the bravery of solo travel. They weren’t entirely wrong; the loneliness upon arriving to a new place is bracing and navigating foreign streets isn’t easy. But as I try to settle down, I realize that it takes at least as much skill to stay in one place.
A life of travel affords easy escape. If novelty wears off, you can move to the next place. If relations get strained, there’s always a new crowd. When clouds roll in, you can always head south. Mistakes and regrets can be abandoned roadside like blown tires, and through the wide angle lens of travel, most problems shrink down to size.
Staying still is entirely different. When smoke rolls in, you breath it; when heat descends, you endure it; and when the rain falls in you get wet. Small problems can loom large, and if relations are strained, you must work it out.
I look at the plant and the feather, which together seem to convey the tension that I carry: To stay in place, or hit the road?
I have a poster on the wall of my house. It reads “How to Build Community” and includes a list of pointers: Know your neighbors. Listen to the birds, Organize block parties. I delight in all of these things and try to do most of them. But in all its cheery encouragement, it fails to cover the harder side community building: Working on yourself.
I was on a walk with a friend the other day, and we explored this trickier aspect of community. For all the support and solace that it provides, there can also be feelings of exclusion, misunderstandings, and conflict with neighbors.
I confessed: “Community can kind of hurt!”
My friend, who has lived here for decades, empathized. She suspected this pain was tied to an almost primal instinct: In our animal bones, we sense that staying in the pack is essential to survival, and the deep biology of this makes some anxiety almost inevitable.
You must learn how to be a good pack member: Don’t take things too personally, and do your best minimize harm to others. Also, be reliable; the reputation of your work follows you around. It’s also essential to hold good boundaries around your own privacy and others. Sharing the wrong detail—even in the form of concern—could be the stick of dynamite that blows up a valuable relationship.
Of course, we are human so we will mess this up. And since you aren’t going anywhere, these mess ups accumulate around you like debris in a river eddy. You have to learn to live with the humility of that. And others will mess up, too, and from that you have to learn forgiveness.
“Maybe this is your growing edge,” my friend said.
That felt right. To deny community is to deny your own personal evolution.
The feather and plant will remain on my altar among travel memorabilia from what feels like another life. But I won’t lie: I feel claustrophobic at times. When the fall breeze blows in, or when I stare at the horizon too long, my mind goes to fresh starts and new lives. I feel a little squirmy. But over time, maybe the feather will become less about flight and more about grace—the grace of staying in place.
Christina Ammon traveled as a freelance writer and as a tour organizer with her company Deep Travel Workshops. She now manages the Applegate’s new destination website, www.WanderApplegate.com She can be reached at [email protected]
