Community

I think that, in my adult life, I am experiencing a true sense of community for the first time. As a child I lived within two different and excellent communities, and both had enormous impacts on my life. What feels different for me right now is the continuity. What I mean is, it seems that right now, wherever we go, there is some connection to our new community.

I've already posted here about walking into the 2nd Unitarian Church in early December and happily discovering that not only does my wonderful friend from college attend (which I knew going in), but so do a great many families from Baxter's school, including one of his best buddies who happens to live near our new house. But things seem to happen in this way time and time again for us here. Baxter had a play date last week with a new friend from his class (who of course also lives near our new house), and her mother told me about the co-op preschool that her girls all attended and that she continues to volunteer for because she loved it so much. It's close to our new house. We went to an Open House yesterday and lo and behold, loved it. And not only did some of Baxter's peers at school go there, but even the woman who would be Lyle's teacher has a child at Burley. You have to comprehend the enormity of this city, and the fact that when many people ask me where Baxter goes to school, they don't know our little school. And because I'm so aware of this thread that seems to be pulling us along into wonderful small groups that appear to be part of a larger community life here, I am determined to join this co-op nursery school, even though it's less convenient than some other options would be for a variety of reasons. It was just obvious to me that it's where we belong.

So this is striking, and makes me realize that we have quite unknowingly stumbled into a community, through Baxter's school, that extends into our neighborhoods (both old and new), our church, and even, if he's lucky enough to get in, Lyle's nursery school.

I knew when we first visited Burley that it felt right. It seemed to embody all of what we valued about education but also about diversity and the choice of city living. I suppose in part, because it's a magnet school, it ends up attracting families from all over who are drawn to many of the same things, rather than simply being made up of families who coincidentally happen to live in a neighborhood. I hadn't really thought of that before. But clearly, we found our people. Really quickly.