Her easy going demeanor washed over the room hushing the twenty or so other attendees as she walked to the front of the room. We all waited with the same reverence for the woman who shared our same passion for gardening in the city to speak and enlighten us with her knowledge. Novella Carpenter started to speak quickly, yet with the confidence of a woman who was used to public speaking. The tan wrap tied snuggly against her left breast began to move as she introduced herself. She quickly pulled back the wrap to expose a small head of baby blond hair.
“Sorry,” she explained, “this appendage here is my new daughter. She just needs to eat because that’s all she really does now, so I might have to do this once in a while.” With this she adjusted the baby to suckle her breast and returned to her PowerPoint presentation. I smiled, remembering the days of constant breast feeding I endured only months before.
Now, here is a woman who has herself together, I thought to myself, knowing that I would never be able to be as easy going and nonchalant about giving a presentation, much less breast feeding while doing it. I immediately became even more in awe of this inspirational author.
As she began to introduce the other author of her new book, The Essential Urban Farmer, something she said made my heart beat a little faster.
“Eight years ago I moved to the Bay Area and was trying to find a community that I fit into. That’s when I met Willow.”
Find a community? Yes, that’s what she said, I thought to myself. I looked around the room at the other attendees listening to her speak. Was there anyone else here looking for a community, I wondered. I certainly was.
Although the rest of the presentation was very informative, with Novella speaking of the positive aspects of raising livestock in the city and Willow Rosenthal briefing us in her knowledge of urban vegetable propagation, I couldn’t stop thinking about Novella’s flippant comment about finding a community. Without being fully aware, I have been urgently looking for a ‘community’ these past few weeks. This book signing presentation was only one event of a relatively long list of events that I have attended in search of what my heart desires most.
Like Novella, much of my seeking has led me to the land. I have attended several classes at a local demonstration garden in the Sunset District run by an organization called Garden for the Environment. This, in turn, led me to attend a fundraiser for the organization as well as Novella and Willow’s book signing presentation. All of these events I have attended alone.
Like many others in this city, I do not fair well as a solitary creature. When I enter a room full of people I don’t know, I often find myself against a bar (or a bush) watching the exchange of pleasantries around me as if I were a bird watcher examining the bright plumage dance of the cockatoo. I quietly observe the social bobbing and weaving rather than dancing along.
As I write this, I realize that my daughter reflects this same initial social behavior. When we get to a playground full of children playing and screaming, she often ends up frozen and mesmerized by all the activity around her rather than joining in. I wonder now if she has learned this from me or if her reaction is innate.
There is one difference between me and my daughter in these social situations though. After her first initial shock of being around so many other children her same age wears off, she happily wonders around the playground by herself. She blindly amuses herself by moving sand from one location to another as a group of toddlers behind her fill a large orange bucket with sand together. Her ability to be so independent amazes because, quite honestly, I am anything but.
As many of my close friends can attest, I am quite the exhibitionist when I am around them, so why is it that I can’t break out of my shell when I am put in the social situation of making new friends in a group setting? I have many excuses as to why this is the case, but the one I usually tell myself is that I simply just don’t fit in. I often look at the other attendees of my garden classes and realize that like them, I don’t own anything made out of hemp or hand-crocheted or tie-dyed. When I talk to other moms at the playground, they seem much more into their own social groups or phones to include me. And when the rare occasion arises and I get to go out with my hubby to an art gathering, I find myself lost as to what I could say that might interest such a crowd.
This self realization of my social tendencies is very difficult to admit. Even more difficult, is to admit that I have to stop making excuses as to why I can’t make friends and in turn find my community. I need to be open to every person who enters my life, because if I don’t, I will end up as I have been, feeling lost and alone.
I know that my community is out there, and I now know that it’s up to me to find it. With this realization, I will try to be more approachable in every social situation. I will move away from my wall of observation and try to start a conversation, however awkward it may be. I must also remember that however different I may think I am, everyone has felt that they don’t fit in at one point in their life. With this I open my arms to the sweet embrace of being a part of something bigger than myself and hope that my community is out there waiting.
