Parallelogram: Where Art Thou, Community?

\One ex-pat experience explored from two points-of-view\

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Lisa\Montreal

Laura\Mayaguez wrote about church yesterday and I too had the thought this weekend about finding a community.  This week’s Parallelogram is therefore united in spirit but divided in timing.  Click here for Laura’s Community post and gaze downward for mine.

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I just finished binge-watching Community and now I don’t know who I am or what I’m supposed to be doing.  Netflix = immersion therapy.

Abed

When I first moved from New York to San Francisco in 1999, a friend and her husband came to visit.  They had just moved from Michigan to Ohio.  When I knew Meg in college she was wild (think: trip to the ER) but when she met her husband, a very religious man, she adopted his lifestyle and for all I know they are still happily married and still living their faith.  When I saw her in San Francisco she was already happy and she said this had everything to do with her husband and their church community. When they moved, she recounted, their church from Michigan contacted their new church in Ohio and set up a welcome committee literally in her driveway.  Complete strangers helped unpack their furniture and fed them meals the day they arrived.  But they weren’t strangers were they?  Having just moved myself and feeling very lonely, Meg’s story stuck with me.  Fifteen years and many moves later, I still think of it and the benefit of belonging.

Years later, when Kris and I left New York (second time for me) for Greenwich’s greener pastures, I researched deeply into joining the Quakers, or Society of Friends.  I fully admit to being wooed by Six Feet Under’s Nate/Maggie storyline but regardless, away from the (anonymous) energy of the city, I longed to join a community.  Before I knew it we were in Bermuda, Arlo came and with him I was born into the Ex-Pat Stay-At-Home-Mothers Community and it was good.  I still miss it.

There is a church directly outside our apartment.  Her stained glass windows play backdrop to my daughter’s tormented slumber.  I don’t even know what kind of church it is but I do know Sunday morning services are held in Spanish.  Early.

Durga Puja is soon so that sent me googling for a local Bengali Association.  Is that where we belong?

There is a loneliness that comes with being a stay-at-home-parent who moves around so much.

Abed 2

And they call you a robot.

I am looking forward to finding and contributing to a community here in Montreal.  I’ve been told to get in and make friends by Halloween because after that people stay indoors.  More than one person has told me this so the clock is ticking.  SAHMs?  Bloggers?  Photographers?  American Ex-Pats?  I know there’s something for me/us and I will find you.  ACCEPT ME!

Ahbed 3

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