14: Community

2022-1-27 – Sunday

1. Quiet Sunday
2. I Took Tam to the station for a theatre trip to London.
3. When I Got back and raked leaves.
4. I need to do more manual labour, 1 hour of leaf raking, and I’m pooped.
5. What was the trigger for this foray into manual labour?
6. In our street, we have three maple trees which decided to shed their leaves.
7. Yesterday, My neighbour Bob spent a few hours raking and collecting the leaves in the communal areas of the street.
8. I’m so appreciative of him doing this every year, BUT I want to remove the sole burden of this task from him.
9. I’d like the street to come together to tidy up our street.
10. In my imagination, I picture us all together, rake in hand, using our ‘green bags’ to collect and dispose of the detritus of the street together.
11. I picture setting up a table with warm tea and a BBQ, making bacon sandwiches while we work together to eliminate the autumn drop.
12. Bob is frustrated because no one helps! But we’ve never asked the people of the street to come together.
13. We’re all focused on our little bit, and no one is coordinating a community effort.
14. It’s easy to talk philosophically about how remote work can enable people to become part of the local community, but without someone organising it, it won’t happen spontaneously.
15. Last year we had a street party in one of the two communal areas.
16. That happens because two neighbours and I put ourselves out there to make it happen.
17. It didn’t happen this year because no one organised it, despite everyone enjoying themselves.
18. I want to be part of the solution, and I am happy to make it happen.
19. I live on the street I grew up on, having bought my parent’s house from them.
20. Some of my neighbours have been here my whole life, more family than house number plates.
21. They’re getting older now, and I worry that we’re not looking out for them and each other.
22. Is it worth the effort? I think so, but time will tell if this experiment works.
23. During the pandemic, I heard many people say how lonely remote work was.
24. Why is that?
25. Why are our community ties based in work, not on the places we choose to live?
26. Isolation and rules were a factor during the height of the pandemic of course.
27. That’s not the case now.
28. Free time is a factor now, we’re all stuck in front of our computers, BUT we must not forget that we are in charge of our own time.
29. Let’s reach out to our local communities, and let’s do a version of a community barn raising.
30. We can work together to sweep our streets.
31. To forge ties with each other.
32. All it takes is one person to decided to make it happen.
33. This is not a Karen’s charter. We’re not demanding people to join.
34. We’re asking them to participate and forging relationships with the people who want to be part of something bigger.
35. Make local community happen.
36. Be brave!

1. Reading: Peripheral by William Gibson
2. Wordle 524: 4/6