Re-Building Community

The Prof has been gone now for some time and, apart from the gym and Zooming with work colleagues, I have not spoken to an adult in all that time. The other night I was thinking I could use a glass of wine with a friend and it occurred to me that I don’t really have any friend I could call up to come over, spur of the moment like that. I have some local friends from my former jobs who I could call, but we have never done anything without planning weeks in advance and spontaneity might be kind of weird, just all out of the blue? But most of the people to whom I am emotionally closest, who I’d have over to my house in a snap, live hundreds of miles away.

Well. The research is clear that people’s happiness is most impacted by their social life, and mine is a bit sad right now. Post-covid most of the local, in-person social interactions have withered on the vine and I am suddenly feeling the call to prod them back to life. It seems obvious that the best way to do that is to create a structure where it will happen naturally, by joining a class or club or setting up some repeating event. This is one of the easiest places to achieve this goal of mine – one of this city’s redeeming qualities is it has endless opportunities for social interaction, and it is a really welcoming place. Although this is NOT one of the easiest seasons to do it in – it is “feels like 115 degrees” outside and the heat just saps everyone’s energy and joie de vivre. This is our hibernation time. What I honestly need to do is just find and befriend a socially active door-opener. You know what I mean? The type of people who just make things happen, who propose activities and everyone goes along. We are not those people, and we need to find some. I will report back on my progress for this project.

Meanwhile, I also want to report to on my success eating from my list of summer foods. We did a Costco run and bought lots of vegetables and fruits, and I’ve been making giant bowls of vegetables and proteins.