All Together

'Community' is an over-used word, too beloved of politicians and marketing departments, when they want us to feel warm and fuzzy, and not too suspicious. It can edge into the coercive: "We should all turn up on Saturday and do something for the community". It's not a concept that stands up to too much probing: in any group who happen to be living in the same locality, there are likely to be strong disagreements about any subject you may choose, and as much personal animosity as there is fellow-feeling; many of them may not know one-another at all, but most still consider themselves 'part of the community'. 

Some people laudably devote a large portion of their lives to 'serving the community', often attracting as much criticism as thanks, and seldom having any effective way of discovering what that community actually wants or needs (if that is even a meaningful question, when it is applied to more than a handfull of individuals). Most 'communities' include people who are unsavoury, anti-social or reclusive, but we are still reluctant to say they are not 'part of the community'. If someone commits an egregious act, or some kind of atrocity, the trauma that causes often has an edge of grief or shame that it could be "someone from our community" 

Settling briefly in a new place raises some of these thoughts. Today we did several things with the idea of 'community' loosely circling around them. A prize-winning local food & produce market, established by a grass-roots organisation in the village here, for the purpose of enriching the community. We came away with good eating and a good impression, not just of the range and quality, but something more intangible, that I can only describe as the 'spirit' in which the goods were offered and bought

A stop at a gallery where a community (here we go again) of artists are co-operating to keep their work on show, open for business as much as possible, and attractively displayed. Just a craft and card shop, then? Well, yes but... and I'm reduced to trying to define the undefineable again: a lightness of touch, a quality of caring, a sense of worth; can I even say desire to add something to the community? 

A ramshackle back yard in a scruffy part of town, where someone mends ancient cars for their own pleasure, someone turns junk they have scrounged or bought for a song into saleable items for the commin good, someone else has created a traditional carpentry workshop, where they run training in ancient techniques for producing rustic cottage furniture. A loosely-organised 'community space' where people share tools and techniques and experience

Tea and cake in a self-described "creative community space... where people can meet, eat, make and create". A little sugary (the cake, more than the prose), but served with charm and warmth (the tea and the smile it came with). A quick stop to book a meal in the 'community pub', where a lot of the community were painting each-others faces with spiders' webs and ghoulish colours, and our names were cheerfully added to the pop-up meal list

So we have come away with our own subjective experience of a small random sample of things happening in this place that, I'm sure, thinks of itself as a community. It was a good experience; it feels like a good community. It will be fun to imagine ourselves part of it, however transient and ephemeral our presence, and whatever it is

The artwork from the gallery - a 'green woman - seemed appropriate to the date