Behind the Puddle

I didn’t set out to create a community behind the puddle.

Actually, I didn’t create one at all.

I just finally started noticing the one that was already here.

There are the obvious members.

The geese and their families.

The mallards.

Stella and Stanley.

Shelly.

Pinecone.

The birds that can empty freshly filled feeders with an efficiency that would be impressive if I weren’t the one buying the birdseed.

There are creatures who visit every day and others who appear just often enough to remind me that they are still around.

But the community behind the puddle isn’t only wildlife.

There are neighbors we have known for years.

People who stop for driveway conversations.

A young boy who wandered down to try fishing.

The girls walking to the inlet and debating whether something in the water is a frog, a pile of leaves, a spider, or a daddy longleg.

Brian sitting beside me.

The dogs coming in and out of the patio door.

People across the puddle caring for the Purple Martins.

People I may never even meet who care about this little patch of water for reasons entirely their own.

And now there are people who know this place because I started telling its stories.

People who ask about Pinecone.

People who recognize Stella and Stanley.

People who wonder where Shelly has been.

Some of them have never stood in this yard.

They have never sat in one of these chairs.

They may never see the puddle anywhere except through a photograph on a screen.

And somehow, they have become part of this too.

I think I used to understand community mostly as a group you joined.

A neighborhood.

A workplace.

A church.

An organization.

A club.

Something with a name, perhaps a meeting, and usually someone keeping a list.

But maybe community can happen much more quietly than that.

Maybe it begins when we start recognizing one another.

When someone’s absence is noticed.

When their return makes us smile.

When we know a little piece of their story.

When we make room.

When we care what happens next.

The geese certainly don’t know I’ve assigned meaning to their daily visits.

Pinecone has not officially joined anything.

Shelly seems particularly uninterested in community participation.

And yet each of them has become part of the rhythm of this place simply by continuing to show up.

Maybe people aren’t so different.

We don’t always need a grand gesture to matter to a community.

Sometimes we contribute simply by being the person who keeps showing up.

The neighbor who waves.

The person who asks how someone is doing, and waits for the real answer.

The one who remembers a name.

The one who notices when somebody hasn’t been around.

The one who makes a little room at the edge and says, you can fish here if you’d like.

No single creature makes the puddle what it is.

No single person makes a family, a neighborhood, or a community either.

It is all of us.

Showing up imperfectly.

Coming and going.

Making noise.

Occasionally getting on one another’s nerves.

Helping when we can.

Noticing when someone returns.

Creating something together that none of us could create alone.

Maybe community isn’t something we build and then belong to.

Maybe it is something we keep creating every time we make room for another life beside our own.