Friday, July 30, 2010

Thinking of Community...

Yoga was fun this morning. Tammy and the girls have become the regulars, with a rotating group of semi-regulars. A week or so ago, Bailey emailed Teresa- it has been on my list to do for some time- and wrote one of her flash emails, yoga is tomorrow at 9, hope you can come, Bailey- kind of things. As short as it was, it did the trick to connecting in someone from our previous community yoga crowd- Teresa emailed last night.

When she came in, we did the introductions. I figured she and Tammy had met somewhere along the line, since they live within a mile of one another. They had, but had not really known each other aside from a meeting with another of our former yoga folks who moved to Cailfornia several years back. This led to the reality sinking in that my eight year old's entire life has been almost free of the community yoga group.

That sounds like nothing, except that this group has been my only real connection to the community in which I live. I have been a professional in this industry since the early 1990s. But we moved out here in 1999. And other than the other folks I saw on the site council and PTA in the small district where the children used to attend school, I didn't know anyone. So I slowly started posting signs about starting a community yoga group.

This was well before facebook or craigslist, at least for me. I met my friend Toni this way. She brought friends from the school and I invited other parents. When I took the job on the reservation, it was the girls from the yoga group who helped me find the woman who we used for child care. They threw an impromptu shower for me before Wyatt Clay was born. After Wyatt was born, the group sort of fizzled out. Stacy moved to Montana, Terry moved to California. We had moved the group to the community center, but that seemed to take something away from its feeling as a family, and folks came less.

For the last three years, we have driven our children to town to school in order to keep them on track for college and keep Wyatt in programs to help with speech and all. Many of the other parents still here are doing the same. We moved to a 4H group on the northern end of the road we live on so that Bailey could work with other kids that do Pygmy goat. It has increasingly felt that the only thing we had left here in this community was the house.

I have been wanting to restart the yoga group for some time. Also wanting to teach classes here at the house has helped move this along. When I first logged on to Facebook a few weeks ago, Toni found me almost immediately. Tammy did too, our children having gone to preschool together and done Clover Club together before we moved our children to different town schools. Connecting this morning, and finding how we all fit together and seeing in all of our children the passage of time,it really brought this home today.

Before she left, Teresa and I caught up again as we have from time to time over the years, standing in the hallway where she used to be known for statements that hit home. When I walked her out, we discussed the community feeling and reconnection. She said that this was a kind of community in itself. Outside of our little houses, we come together once each week. Silly, laughing, not strict, but practicing together and passing it on to the next generation while supporoting one another and working on ourselves. Yep, our own community. And everyone is welcome. Thanks for keeping me on track, girls!!!

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