Community-- not just for teachers-- but us all



I've written a few times lately about the need for community in these turbulent, toxic times. (Pardon the alliteration.) I have a group of friends, all former Frost Place CPT participants, who have become my poetry family. Since many of us have had some difficulty making the trip to Monson Arts, we have had to find a way to stay connected. Some of us are on Facebook, and there's always Christmas cards and sending good thoughts out into the universe, but there's also Zoom. While many of us felt some Zoom-fatigue after the pandemic (which is still lurking around, but you know what I mean), it's also provided us with an automatic lifeline as well. 

We try to meet up once a month to chat and to share in some poetry-related fun, and it's really become a bright spot for us. Our friend Jaime sent it out the other day that she has been missing our community a lot, and thus we scheduled a date for next Wednesday evening. Now, usually there's maybe four or five of us who can manage it, and we have a great time. This time, though, it looks like the entire crew wants to be online for an hour. We miss each other's company, and if we can't be with each other in person, this will have to do. Maybe it's because we met up in Franconia at The Frost Place every summer, and we're especially missing each other due to the time of year. But I think it's got a lot to do with the heightened awfulness of the news, the state of things in our country, and, since most of us are either teachers or retired educators, it's got a lot to do with the ongoing assault on educators. 

When someone asks "are you ready to go back yet?"-- yes, I wrote about this the other day-- part of my resistance to the start of another school year is because we in education feel so damned, well, damned. For me, it's not a product of my own school-- we are pretty well supported, and I love my students. I'm excited about sharing the learning journey with them. But at the wider levels of both state and country, it's disheartening. While I enjoy what I do, and I'm pretty pumped about some of the new stuff I want to try, it's hard not to feel a bit abraded by the negativity on the larger scale. 

We all need a friend group, or a few friend groups, to turn to. Not necessarily to complain with (though that happens, but it's really not that sustaining or sustainable), but to just rest in the presence of others who understand what is going on in your head and heart. 

Find a community if you don't have one. Things are not going to be a whole lot better at the state or national level for a while-- it could be years, or even decades-- and we can't hope to survive emotionally and spiritually, or thrive physically, without other people who like us and whom we like in turn. 

I hope you have a good day. 

C

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