Together

Today a friend let me read her daughter's college application essay. It was about growing up in the building we used to live in together in Brooklyn. The building was a church that had been divided into about sixty individual units, several of which housed kids who were close in age to my boys. In her essay, G wrote about how much they loved to run amok through the halls, between floors on the elevator or in the stairwell, from the basement to the sixth floor, in and out of one another's apartments. While the kids schemed, parents cooked or waited for food deliveries, gossiped, and kvetched. Most of us left our apartment doors unlocked when the kids were playing together. We'd have gone mad otherwise, answering knocks every five minutes. Pairs of them often came barging through our apartment door, breathlessly asking if I'd seen so-and-so or if I knew where Henry went. Once they rigged up a pulley system so they could transport stuffed animals in a basket from our first floor apartment to 3G, where Charlotte lived. It was the urban version of a cul-de-sac. Kids could test the thrilling waters of greater independence without straying too far from the safety of home base. 

Like the majority of New Yorkers, most of our building's residents came to the city from other parts of the country and world. Some of us had family nearby, but in a city as densely populated as New York, it could take an hour or more to travel a few miles. When you live in such close proximity to others, unless you're extremely introverted, social bonds form quickly and easily -- especially so when kids are in the mix. Our interdependence was both quotidian and extraordinary. We didn't just borrow cups of sugar or sign for our neighbors' packages. We attended each other's funerals. We took in each other's kids when we were struggling to cope with life's challenges. We slept on each other's couches when we were too afraid to be alone. 

The sense of community G described so beautifully in her essay was the one thing that gave me pause when I first started thinking about moving to the west coast almost seven years ago. I think it's one of a handful of reasons so many New Yorkers remain loyal to a city that is not at all easy to live in. It's why people so often opt to rebuild their homes on the same land that's been destroyed by floods and fires. Building real communities takes time and involves some risk. There is the risk of rejection when we make bids for connection with those around us, and then there is the risk of loss once trust and bonds have been established. But we have to find ways to overcome those (and other) barriers. Not only do adults need to be a part of a community, but our kids do, too. They look to their elders to learn how to be members of a community -- how to trust and be trusted, how to get to know others and to be known ourselves, and most importantly, how to care and be cared for. Making friends and getting to know our neighbors will likely involve awkward moments. There will be hits and misses. There will be times we feel misunderstood. What do we do then? Recognize those moments, name them ("awkward!"; "annoying!"; "frustrating!"), take a breath and begin again. Maybe it's time to begin with someone else, maybe it's time to start over with the same person -- that's for you to decide. The point is, don't let a little discomfort throw you off course.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but the subtext to what G wrote about in her essay seemed to be: there is no substitute for human interaction IRL. We come close with Zoom, texting, Facebook, etc., but we have to keep making concerted efforts to physically leave our homes. Just because you can participate in a group online instead of in-person doesn't mean you should. Maybe you can see your therapist virtually for every session, but maybe it would do you good to challenge yourself to book an in-person session. Doing things online is often easier, but it's not necessarily better or even as good. 

Finally, I read G's essay an hour after listening to this fantastic episode of Hidden Brain. If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe Shankar Vedantam: Relationships 2.0 An Antidote to Loneliness.