What Community Means to Me {Pt. 1}

· 🛻 on growing up & building families from the ground up 🪴 ·

“What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I’m going to try my best to avoid committing that most elementary of mistakes it seems many writers make—which is to preface this ramble in a preamble with any specific definition of the buzzword which I’ve chosen to dissect below… 🤓

The word being community, it’s tempting to reach for a dictionary—yet such a simple (& seemingly) innocuous gesture could sabotage the integrity of my piece entirely… Since the point here is to offer my very own (perspective &) definition!

I would instead like to offer a bizarre tidbit about the autistic brain: I read our prefrontal cortex develops faster, but doesn’t mature until later, & begins to deteriorate earlier than that of allistic (believed to be baked by age 25) brains… 🧠

Enjoy the essay, friends! 🤍

~ 📸 of me in action by the owner of Raíces Plant Truck ~

At the age of 35, I decided to move back to my hometown in Central Florida…

I’d been abroad for five years—long enough to make France feel like home—even spent the majority of the lockdown there. But when travel became such a restricted thing, I began to miss my family too much. I finally cracked when my younger sister’s second little one was born. So in late 2021, I found myself living in “the sunshine state” once more. The last time I called this subtropical region home was when I rage quit & moved away for college at age 17… Which (if you’re enough of a dweeb to do the math—like I am) means that I had been away for another entire 17 years. Of course, I ended up crash-landing with my parents often enough over those adventure-filled seasons to keep tabs on the place. I simply never expected to be back heartbroken & completely broke yet again by choice—much less that this particular time around, I’d stay put… For long enough to allow my roots to begin to dig themselves back into the earth.

This past summer marked 30 years since my Puerto-Rican parents chose this town as where they’d like to raise their own children. As the eldest daughter, I’d already bounced from sunny island in the Caribbean to coastal (but rural) Tampa to the suburbs of Orlando with them… So I was already 8 (going on 9) when we arrived, & settled in Lakeland as a family of four. It felt strange that there were far fewer Spanish-speakers here—in comparison to the schools & neighborhoods I was accustomed to where we celebrated our heritage. Then instead, due to the racism in the form of bullying & comments under people’s breath & frequent teasing & other things I won’t describe, I eventually grew to hate the fact that we were the ones who spoke a different language. I grew to feel ashamed of my origins. I adapted—or rather, assimilated. It was far easier for me & my sister than it was for our parents, so I even grew to resent them…

It wasn’t until I moved away that I was able to see any of this… Or to feel any amount of pride in where I came from, & where I grew up. But it took longer than that to feel safe here—safe to be completely myself, or to even consider raising my own little children here. Last summer, I wrote about local pride & what that means to me. I was feeling aglow after attending a fabulous bake-sale fundraiser for trans-rights organized by Gabby (Gabriella Vigoreaux of Cool Beans) & her amazing wife Gio… Who together form Bandidas (favorite bakery & catering in town). This year, I was feeling increasingly depressed—due to world news—not to mention, deeply ashamed to call myself a citizen of this money-driven, war-mongering country. So in a desperate attempt to do anything besides doom-scroll on the couch, I begged our mutual friend Steph (the powerhouse behind Buena Market) to assist with any fundraisers for June.

That’s how I got to be a fly on the wall for a genuinely inspiring experience, & truly beautiful event. We provided easy, eco-friendly crafts to children & their families for free… Regardless of their ability or willingness to donate—or even discuss—the causes being promoted. We made it clear the organizations we’d chosen to promote were those which directly served children affected by this ongoing conflict abroad… Buena Market designed a flyer with a simple way to scan in donations to either the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, or Operation Olive Branch. But no record was kept nor receipt was exchanged, because the goal wasn’t in collecting funds—which we sadly knew wouldn’t make a dent in this horrific conflict. The goal was simply to raise awareness, & provide a safe space to broach the subject with one’s children... To help teach them what it means to belong to a far greater, global family. What it means to care—deeply.

As an educator, I can understand why so many guardians strongly hesitate to discuss such distressing issues as starvation with children. My folks certainly avoided many topics. I still hope to have a child someday, & I know I’ll hesitate strongly not to shelter them from harm. But I remember growing up feeling increasingly alarmed, because I knew few adults around me were being fully honest. My distress turned into suspicion of most adults—fear I’ve never fully shaken… However, I hope I’ve begun to now that I’m one of the adults making choices which will impact children for generations to come. I’ve often taught (or tried to teach) my students the importance of caring about more than just one’s family members—that all of humanity is one big family—but it isn’t often I’ve felt like I lived up to that example… This experience was one of those rare times, & I’m still unpacking many sentiments that came with it. { TBC in Pt. 2! }

~ poster for the event designed by Buena Market ~