Community

I am going work coordination today. Yesterday the tiler gave us a surprise, asking who would do the backing board for the shower. I had thought they were doing it; they thought I was doing it. The quote made no mention of it, so it is mine to deal with. Fortunately I have help. When I discovered this problem, I posted a request to friends on Facebook and sure enough my friends here in Calgary have stepped in to help.

It continues to amaze me and gives me great joy to see the way my community here springs into action to help one another, not just me. There is a willingness amongst us all to do the things that make life better, friendlier, and easier for each other. If someone needs to move, we are there to help. If someone needs to paint, people offer themselves up as workers, and in my case I asked for help with backing the shower and sure enough the gang has stepped up.

What is really interesting as that a couple of the guys have never done anything like this, yet one of my women friends who is helping today has done lots of renovating in her own home. So she is teaching them about it while I am sort of just managing the whole effort, or micro-managing it as the case may be. Still, it is great to have some experience in the group, and even better that we get to share our experience in the process of helping one another.

I am constantly reminded of the power of a social community, a group of people who come together with nothing more in common that a willingness to like each other. I've seen it more here in Calgary than anywhere else I have been. Perhaps this so because almost everyone here is from somewhere else; virtually all of us in the city are immigrants, either from other parts of Canada or around the world. Our lives are bounded by winter weather, so we spend more time indoors, and more time with each other. Our diversity builds our social fabric, making a place where people are accepted for who they are, not where they are from or their ethnicity.

Of course not all of this happens to all people. I've been lucky, something I am deeply grateful for and appreciative of.