This collection of creative, interesting weirdos (Patreon)

I’m on the bus now. This photo was taken a couple nights ago, when Lucy Bellwood graciously let me barge in to her house with hardly a warning to gobble up her leftovers for dinner and embroider while she knitted on the couch.

I’m thinking about community. I’m thinking how I instinctively recoil from official “Community”. The kind that organizes events and meet-ups based around a shared interest or identity. I’m glad they exist, I’m glad for (jealous of) the people who can show up and find their people and become a Community Member. 

I am not one of them. I do not belong. I am never good enough, never pure enough, never the right fit. It’s partly in my head, because I hate myself to my core and I project that onto others, and partly it’s real, because we humans are such simple little apes underneath it all and the only way to have an “US” group is to have a “THEM” group to reject and more often than not I find myself in the latter. Feminism, comics, sex, blogging— I’m the THEM, the example of what NOT to be, what NOT to do, I do it all wrong to be a part of The Community. If you’ve heard I was a bitch, it’s probably true. If you’ve heard I was bullied, it’s probably true, too. I do it to myself and it’s done to me. It’s both.

I don’t seek out organized Community any more. I’m invited to speak at Community events hosted by an organizer that sees their group’s interests depicted in the work that I do and I turn them down because I’m scared to be judged, scared to be rejected by the rest of the Community Members when I get there. On paper, you qualify, but when you get there, you're The Wrong Type. You're the invader they need to close ranks against before you can corrupt them with your impurity, your misinterpretation of their common interest. I don't enter the room so I can't be rejected by the group.

But I do have community. I have micro communities. Over the decades I've hand picked individuals who fit me like a puzzle piece, we fit each other like puzzle pieces, we slot right in with our interests and passions. We're not not all in the same group, honestly, I wouldn't want us all to be in the same room together because they may all be my puzzle pieces but they're not necessarily each other's. Haha, I'm describing one-on-one friendship, aren't I? But it feels like more than that. I think of this collection of creative, interesting weirdos that I've cultivated and I think "My People. My Community. My Completed Puzzle." They wrap me up, they hear me, they love me in spite of my flaws-- no, they love me including my flaws. And I love them too. I love the way they think, I love how they express themselves, I love that they are flawed, I love that they share their vulnerability with me, I love that sometimes they drive me crazy, I love how different they can be from each other and I love the overlaps they share, even if they'll never meet each other. 

I don't have some wisdom to share with you. I can't tell you how to find your people. But what I can say is that a couple nights ago I asked/announced that I would be coming over to spend the evening at Lucy's and it was good for my heart, good for my soul.