finding community

Finding and creating community

| jamiefeinberg

Have you ever struggled to make friends? Have you ever found yourself without a person to call or text, without a ride to an appointment or someone to vent to when you had a hard day? 

I think it’s fair to say that all of us have felt this way at some point in time, and some of us have felt is very often. If we are a member of the queer community, or BIPOC in a setting where that isn’t the norm, or disabled, etc. etc. etc., we might feel this struggle even more frequently. 

I’m someone who has frequently created events as a way to bring people together and do something fun. I started all sorts of clubs on the playground and in my neighborhood and at my middle school. I staged a musical revue as a secret way to make friends when I moved into a new community in my early twenties. So for me, I can’t help but bring my creativity to the table when I think about how we build community. 

Photo description: I (Jamie Feinberg) bumped into these sweet daisies, a bit of nature by the pavement on my walk

I’m thinking about the role of community right now a lot, especially because it’s Pride Week here on Prince Edward Island, a week (or even ten days!) full of intentional community-building and fellowship. On Sunday, I led a queer-centered showtunes singalong, sitting at the piano in the middle of a room full of musical theater fans. I shared tidbits and stories about queer writers, queer characters and queer performers in musical theater, interspersed with anecdotes about my own experiences seeing and performing musical theater. The previous day, I spent my morning in the Pride Parade, handing out candy attached to rainbow-colored flyers promoting our singalong. 

Being a member of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community (that’s what we usually say here in Canada, but insert your own acronym as preferred) can present all sorts of challenges, but for a week or two each year, we are SO lucky to feel safe and seen enough to gather in community. When my husband and I first moved to Canada, I knew I needed to find my people, and I did so through music. I felt a nudge to join a chorus again, and that’s where I met most of my friends. We’d been here for less than a year when we experienced our first Pride Week on PEI, and for both my husband and I, that was a transformative moment. We were so proud, and we felt so welcomed, so seen. We knew we were home. 

Community for me can be found making music, gathering in queer spaces, in Jewish spaces, in community with theater artists, and sometimes at the intersection of all of these things. We can find community in coffee shops and speakeasies, in nature and at play. And when our communities are being threatened, we show up for each other, just like others have shown up for us. 

A few years back, I wrote up a bunch of tips for making friends if you’re childfree, and the tips actually work really well for anyone who’s seeking to find community. (The full article is here.) I think it’s important, now more than ever, to have a variety of friends, in a variety of spaces. Know who you trust, and in what capacity. Know where you can go regularly to experience joy. 

I will also mention that the more intersections of communities that apply to you (for example, queer + Black or trans+ disabled), you may find it even more challenging to find communities where other people are dealing with the same stuff you are. I hope that even if you find that some people in your community don’t look like you or struggle with the same exact things, that you can still find “your people” – the people who love you and trust you and have your back, regardless of what you have in common. 

I will also reiterate here, that while I know it can be cliche and even dangerous sometimes when people say they are a “safe space”, I am truly trying to do the work to be a safe space. I may not be trans, I may not be Black, I may not have your exact struggles, but I hope that I can offer you community if you desire it. 

Coaching and mental fitness training have been an extraordinary place for me to build community and to foster it, for myself and for others. If you’re interested, I’d love to talk to you about the ways we can study the Enneagram or do mental fitness work or other types of coaching together. 

Whether you decide to start your own knitting group, join a book club, or learn to swim, I hope you have found or are finding your community. Have any tips for others? Please share them. 

Recent articles from me you might enjoy: 

Let good enough be good enough

Creating space, allowing stillness

Anxious for the future? Quiet and control those hyper-vigilant thoughts

Finding gratitude while facing fascism

Enjoy the sun

10 ways your mind is messing with you

Joy as resistance

Tell me when I can pre-order your book!

Prioritizing community

| jamiefeinberg

When we finalized our plans to move into an apartment and settle down in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, both Ross and I were particularly excited about the opportunity to find community.

Previous to hitting the road in an RV, we’d both found community mainly in the arts. Though I was still seeking a “best” friend or two, for the most part, we were happy enough day to day with our social circles. We had friends of different ages, friends who we’d invite to parties, and the friends that we performed with. It wasn’t perfect. Ross struggled to find a strong, accepting music community with plenty of opportunities for him, and I didn’t have the close friends I was hoping for. But we knew we were lucky to have lots of friends and fellow musicians that we were sad to leave behind when we started traveling.

As full-time travelers in an RV, our definition of community shifted. We found online community with other RVers or musicians, in-person community when we settled into a campground for a while, and in some places, we were welcomed into the local music community too. When we hit it off with friends while workcamping, held in-person meetups with friends we’d met online, or stumbled into a wonderfully accepting music community (think Seattle, Denver, Orlando, and most ESPECIALLY Portland, OR!), we rejoiced and made the most of it. And when the pandemic hit, Ross found community with musicians from around the world at ukulele meetups.

By the time we moved to Canada, we were ready for other types of community. The need had been exacerbated by the pandemic as well. We were ready to find a local farmer’s market, a regular grocery store, retailers, restaurants. We were ready to build lasting relationships and find a musical home that would accept us and sustain us moving forward.

For Ross, finding community has happened fairly naturally. As a student, he met classmates and professors and was soon getting invitations to parties and musical performances. He started performing in ensembles and socializing during and in between classes, and together we enjoyed local holiday festivities and concerts with the wider community (when COVID protocols and our own comfort permitted).

For me, finding community has meant taking deliberate actions on a regular basis, and following my intuition. I had a hunch that music would be a great entry point to making friends, and that hunch was completely correct. It led to me making a couple of wonderful friends within a few months of arriving here, and I’m now collaborating with dozens more through Island A Cappella and Luminos Ensemble. I even made a friend through a purchase on Facebook Marketplace!

My friend Jenn and I, at a wonderful comedy show, pre-Omicrom variant.

I’m now regularly receiving invites and getting to know my new local friends. I’ve even joined a local book club, one of those things I’d “always wanted to do” pre-pandemic, but never had.

And while COVID often slows things down for a while, each of these efforts has had some positive effect. I have both in-person and virtual meetups regularly.

Meanwhile, I’ve continued to strengthen my existing friendships, with Zoom meetups and phone calls with friends and family: our personal development mastermind, RVing friends, monthly family teas, and monthly check-ins with family and friends from so many places in my life.

I spent so many years feeling frustrated that I didn’t have the close friends I wanted. If I threw a party, it was always a hit. And I could cast a show or a concert. But who did I call or text when I was struggling? Honestly, for most of my adult life, I didn’t have anyone, or if I did, it was my partner. My husband is amazing, but we do better as a couple when we each have our own friends too.

Now, as I’ve struggled with anxiety and overwhelm in no small part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, on those tough days, I have a list of people I can connect with. I can make plans with friends. And in any given week or month, I’m getting some of those 1:1, deeper conversations that are one of my favorite things in the world and that energize me.

So if you’re challenged in finding community right now, I wanted to encourage you. I believe it’s absolutely possible. It may take months or years (even decades!) – but it’s possible, if you are able to carve out the time. Especially if you will prioritize it. Join a book club (online or not), a musical group, a walking or hiking club, start a group to attend theater shows together, volunteer…the possibilities are endless!

And one of my goals for this year is creating a retreat so that I can foster and share that kind of relationship-building that I’ve found so helpful and comforting in my own life and business. (Do let me know if that interests you!) I’ll be leading virtual retreats and, in the future at least, in-person ones as well.

Where do you find community? Is this an area that you struggle with? Have you found virtual outlets for when in-person gatherings aren’t feasible?

Please comment, and let me know. I’m so curious. And thanks for reading, friend.