Community is a central concept for Steve and I. We're big on community involvement, connecting with our community and building relationships within our community. This is a concept and a way of life that we talk about, often in relation to how can we better be involved in our community. Because of this focus, our children attend the local public school, we walk our kids to school(the better to have conversations with people), we're involved at the school, and we build friendships in our community. We live in a great little complex that's centered around a courtyard. We live on the inside of the courtyard and have a nice little yard. Because our yard was just dirt when we moved in, it's now a very different space then everyone else's. We've covered the dirt with mulch and added a climber and picnic table. Now our yard is a great place to hang out.
Today our yard was filled with people. Earlier this week, another friend suggested that we have a bbq together with another family. We agreed and suggested inviting yet another family. All of the invitees accepted the invitation and the great community bbq was on. The food was amazing and plentiful, the kids were relatively well-behaved and the conversation was great and multi-lingual. Counting Canada, we represented five different countries: Russia, Bahamas, Israel and the Philippines. This doesn't include countries that individuals may have lived in for a significant period of time. If we did that, the list would be even longer.
Altogether, we hung out for about five hours. I drifted in and out, as did the other women. Strangely the men mostly stayed outside and chatted while the women wandered. It wasn't that we were doing the clean-up either. Building community can be a daunting task, especially when considered from the vantage point of a Canadian winter. But today we took the time honoured tradition of the May 2-4 bbq and turned it into something more. It was good and beautiful and delicious. It was a taste of community.
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