My Simple Community

A while back, I spent a year and a half living in the Los Angeles area while I was working on a project. I lived in a nice enough neighborhood in Pasadena, but the neighbors were really close. I mean reach-out-your-window-to-pass-the-sugar-to-your-neighbor close.  On all sides.

I returned to my native Ann Arbor, MI roots after that period and vowed I was going to get some elbow room. I did. The house, while in Ann Arbor, was in a woods on a court with 12 other houses. I was at the end of the court. You couldn't see tanother house from my house and you couldn't see my house from the courtyard. Ah... seclusion...  I got what I wanted.

Fast forward a few months to see me sitting in my kitchen wondering why none of my neighbors had come over to welcome me to the neighborhood.  Well, let's see. If you pick a house in a secluded woods that can't be seen, and it's in an area of other secluded houses, the odds are your neighbors are there because they want to be secluded, not neighborly.

What's your neighborhood like? Maybe a better question is what does the choice of where you live say about your desire to be connected to your neighborhood?  My woods-house story was an "A-ha" moment for me. I realized in picking a place to live I had focused heavily on the building and physical context, not the community.

Not much you can do about that now. You are there. Even if your next "neighbor" if five miles away, that's your neighborhood.  This post is simply a request to think about your neighborhood.  Make it a conscious effort to realize where you live and who is around you - or the fact that you are isolated.

I suspect in most cases, once we think about it, we realize we have more neighbors than we realize.  Vicki and I are quite active with the neighbors on our street.  I should say SOME of the neighbors.  There is an older woman who lives alone across the street from us. I see here nearly every day when she walks here dogs.  We say hi. But I don't think I have ever really talked with her.

Here is what motivated today's post. Yesterday there was a jar of homemade preserves on our porch from this woman.  What a wonderful neighborly thing to do. I didn't deserve it. I haven't been a good neighbor. And that starts with the fact that I hadn't consciously thought about my neighborhood.

After studying community and developing strategies over the last several years to encourage more fulfilling community engagement, I think I have identified some keys to success.  Perhaps the most important is the power of the story.

The purpose of this blog is to serve as a place for stories - but of a particular kind.

We all have been invited to - or sometimes even just happened upon - a gathering of people who were doing something that really hit the spot when it comes to family, friends and neighbors being able to enjoy each other. The very best of them make it easy for those who participated to go and tell others about the activity in a way that leads others to try the same or similar things.

More than anything else, I want to encourage you to share stories like that for the purpose of motivating people to try and repeat them in their communities.

Many of the stories are common. They are about things that are around us everyday but we just don't think about them. Because we don't think about them, we don't do them. I will share one with you now in the hope that you will consider doing it where you live. But more important, so that you will consider sharing your story here.

By the way, when you hit the "comment" button it asks for your email address. We won't share those publically. It just makes it possible for me to get back in touch with you.

So... my story - the farmers market.

I bet you have one near you. They operate on weekends during harvest seasons. They are almost always outdoors.  Here, they used to close down two blocks of the main street every Saturday morning and there would be two isles of booths where mostly local farmers would sell their fresh fruits and vegatables. Craftsmen would sell their work as well.  There were also coffee and food booths and some form of simple folk music. People often brought their dogs. Neighbors ran into each other. You get it.

Well then last year as the economy started to slip, they decided to move it to... a parking lot.  A parking lot.  I hadn't seen it since. But you know, I assumed it had moved because it was falling on hard times.  Well last weekend Vicki suggested we stop.  Why not. 

I'm an idiot with silly assumptions.  The location was only two blocks away from where it used to be, it was a lot that was surrounded by mature trees and was easy to get to.  And far from failing, the market is easily TWICE the size it used to be.

Here I am, the community guy, and I let my silly assumptions about the economy and change lead me to assume the worst.

Seeing it thrive, with many more people and a lot more offerings, was such a hopeful sign to me, and to shoppers - I am guessing there were twice as many of them as before as well.

When was the last time you went the farmers market?  The other thing that's great about it is I know I am supporting my neighbors and running into them when I go.

What's your story?

Hello!

For those of you who have been following this blog, thanks for your patience and for returning.  Now that the book Simple Community is getting broader distribution we will start seeing new visitors from those who read the book as well.

This is a relaunch of the website with one huge difference. You, the readers, can now participate more easily.  And the reason for the website and the blog, primarily, was to serve as a place for people to tell stories about community gathering that they think others will try doing with their own family and friends. Because stories are the proof of life, they are going to be the heart of the blog as well.  If you have a story, enter it as a comment to any post.  I will pick stories and make them posts so others can comment on them as well.

You will also notice there are "tags" to the posts that allow you to focus on specific topics. Shortly there will be as many as 20 tags. Each post will only have one tag, but may actually touch on several areas.

Over the next few weeks I will catch you up on a lot of great developments in simple community and I will do all I can to engage you in the conversation.

Thanks for being here.

- Rich

Yes, I understand we are all pretty overwhelmed, pretty busy, have more things to do than we have time.

I want to suggest our perception is not reality however.  Think of time as being delivered to you in chunks - 5 seconds here, 4 hours there, 5 minutes in another place.  When you say - or even think - that "I don't have time." what are you thinking about?  You don't have five seconds or you don't have 4 hours?

I think it's pretty safe to say we have lost the war of hours. To ask someone to commit hours is a major request today.  So let's do battle with the minutes. Do you have a minute?  The fact is, if you read this far you already invested a minute, right?

Simple community is spending time with family, friends and neighbors in enjoyable activity that revives us. To revive that kind of community in America takes time - but not the kind of time you will naturally think about.  When I ask you to invest in reviving community, I am asking you to take five minutes here and there, not 60, and not 3 hours.

I am convinced, and have proof, that those who intentionally decide to do more neighborly things that take five minutes or less will discover benefits far beyond the cost of the time spent.  Not only that, the five minutes invested in relationships has two added benefits:

1. Once you intentionally invest five minutes a few time you will realize how important and valuable it is to you to have those connections. It will get you to wonder if community shouldn't be a higher priority than it has been.  I know this one personally!
2. You will discover you find even more time in your life to do the things that are more rewarding in life. If you are currently a low-calorie community type you may fear even five minutes is a waste. Once you experience the benefits you will be amazed how much time you have.

In my work with the NCAA developing college community the biggest concern raised over and over again is there just isn't time to do community programs. I once talked to an athletic director who now has a very involved community engagement program with 12 people on campus regularly working to support it.  I told him "but I thought nobody has time to do this, and you have 12 people?" He said: "Rich, you always have time for things that work."