Community > ...Everything

I walked into the library as I had hundreds of times over the past year. This time, I was alone; an extremely rare occurrence, and one I cherished. I breathed in deeply as soon as I walked in, noting the smell of old books.

A girlfriend had come over to spend time with my 3-year-old while my youngest napped. She visited nearly weekly for the last two months, with a freshly baked loaf of bread as the only expectation in return. I protested and offered to pay her for her time, but she expressed that it was a gift she wanted to give me, and she would only except any form of payment if I were genuinely uncomfortable with the arrangement.

So, we agreed. Payment would consist of a freshly baked loaf of bread upon each visit (or whenever I could manage it that week), and she agreed to only come when she wanted to and to never come when she didn’t.

I cried the third time she came; I was so moved by her generosity and so relieved to have a few hours to myself. I hugged her when she arrived and we made small chit chat. Each week I would either clamber up the stairs to our home office or slip away to a coffee shop or library.

This week, I entered the library, books to return in one hand and an equally rare “to-go” cup of coffee in the other (I can never carry a cup of coffee while chasing two toddlers around!). A Richard Scarry themed tote bag was slung over my shoulder with my Personal Financial Planning book and my laptop tucked inside, a fig bar propped precariously on top in case the caffeine required a balancing snack. I enrolled in a finance class through a local college; a perk of my teaching job is free course credit to use how I’d like, with no pressure to get good grades or keep up with the content if life becomes too hectic.

Last year at this time, I started a French 101 and adored it. However, I never finished the course. During that semester, my grandpa entered hospice and moved into my parents’ home (upheaving my source of support), my sister had a precious baby girl who passed away suddenly six weeks later, and I competed for attention from my spouse against his 80-hour work weeks. I felt alone and invisible caring for our one and two year old at the time, and functioned as the Matriarch of the family while my mom cared for her two (divorced) parents in her home and my sister grieved over the unexpected death of her baby. It had been a heavy year.

I shifted the weighty items on my shoulder, then returned a stack of books, an effort I tried to accomplish as often as possible since we were nearly in a continuous rotation of borrowed books in our home. It was the fourth library I had visited in 24 hours. We visited one library during a dreary rainy morning yesterday for its enormous play space and the play kitchen. The next library was in the evening, for a Mr. Rogers-themed story time (the last of the three-week series). This morning was the same story time library, as I had promised to return promptly as the kids felt they hadn’t had enough time to visit.

And, finally, this afternoon, I sauntered into the local library down the street to take an hour or so to just be myself. Not mom, not wife. Not homemaker, or nurse. Just Rachel The Writer, Rachel The Woman, Rachel The Thinker. It feels so rare to just BE, to answer to no one else, and to get away from parenting and home life to etch real thoughts together into sentences and philosophical quandaries.  

I tiptoed over to a corner of the library I rarely got to explore. It had local events advertised on a corkboard, flyers neatly displayed, and community notices tacked to the wall. I noted a few of them: legal rights to memorize when it came to ICE, a small queer and gender fluid group requesting that their stories are downloaded and printed for the future in case they are destroyed in the current political regime, and a pamphlet on young volunteers offering to call elderly as a sort of phone “pen-pal”.

I thought about taking a picture of the flyers to post online as an effort to show the world what we’re dealing with in the United States, but decided that I wasn’t in the headspace to give it the solemn and thoughtful energy it deserved. I headed upstairs to the quiet seating area.

I took another deep breath, plopping my items down on a table. I wondered if I was wrong to bring in coffee, but the woman next to me had a water bottle and an energy drink. I hoped I would get a few moments to read through my finance book while here, but felt driven to write instead.

Life feels particularly bizarre this moment. So much trauma has occurred in my personal life over the last year, and yet there is so much trauma occurring around our country and around our world. It would be easy to stick my head in the sand or my fingers in my ears. Sometimes I find the hardships difficult to decipher in terms of where one starts and another ends. Does this all seem extra hard right now because I have small children? Is it because I just moved back from Europe and experienced a better quality of life there? Is it because I’m deep in motherhood and just exiting intense sleep deprivation? Is it due to all the hardships on my family over the past year? Is it just from living in America? Is it that I am finally really an adult and I am just awake to what life is really like?

The truth is, the answer is just… yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. It’s all of it. And it’s a lot. And it’s not just me, it’s also affecting so many of the families and the woman and the moms around me. We all feel it, and yet we go on. We band together and we push forward. Thank God for the women in my life.

While living in Paris, I was wrapped in a community of English-speaking moms who were all in a new city away from their families. Many of them were married to French men (and thus had some family nearby), but many also had immigrated from other parts of the world and were just trying to figure it out. Many knew the language, but many did not. We leaned on each other for advice on everything from where to buy salsa or what “T65 flour” meant to how to use the social security and healthcare systems.

Though I didn’t have family nearby (they did visit!), I had friends who made us meals when our babies were born, babysat on occasion, or appeared if we had urgent needs. I learned to receive and offer hand me down clothes and baby items, that it was okay to pay for childcare even when I wasn’t working, and that I deserved rest and care (re: childcare and a house cleaner) simply because I was a human being. I didn’t have to EARN rest and consideration by being productive (a mindset drilled into me by my upbringing in America).

I simply deserved it outright.

When I came back to the US, I rather quickly developed a strong community of women who were dependable, caring, loving, and smart. We created a WhatsApp group which mirrored the group I had just left in France. We texted about how to drop the pacifier habit, which pediatricians were the best, and how to manage the mental load. We made meals for each other, checked in on each other, scheduled playdates and showed up.

This group of women was the main reason I made it out of the past year (June 2024 to June 2025). Therapy, too. This time period was brutal. It tested me in so many ways, and yet here I am, a year later, reclaiming my sanity, my space, and my voice. My therapist has challenged me to prioritize myself, my sister’s motto for me is “TAKE UP SPACE, SIS” and my girlfriends celebrate with me every time I do something for ME, like write a poem, or an article, or workout. I have cheerleaders surrounding me all over; my sweet, sweet friend in Paris who I miss desperately leaves me voice notes more than weekly and for a large chunk of the year we talked every day.

I joined the local PTA, a parenting organization for those with children ages 0-6. I joined at this time last year, determined to meet other local moms and to become involved. I offered to start writing their newsletter; three weeks later my niece passed away, and I redacted my offer through bleary eyes and a foggy mind. I continued to show up to events, but I felt like a ghost; I was a shell of myself, skinny and pale, exhausted emotionally and burned out of parenting alone.

Fast forward to now, and I am so pleased to say that just last night I committed to being the Helping Hands Volunteer, coordinating meals and check-ins for parents who need it – be it meals, hot coffee, a loaf of baked bread…whatever is needed.

Even though life is better, I still face its unnecessary complications daily. For example, each library I entered over the last 24 hours had a display of banned books (such as “The Lorax”, for its take on environmentalism, and “Where the Wild Things Are” for its encouragement of children to question authority). One library offered a list of banned “characters” for children to find as a scavenger hunt (these characters included a Brown Bear from “Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?” and the pig from “Charlette’s Webb”).

I could never have guessed that motherhood and life as a woman would be so political. But the truth is, we are forced into it, willingly or not. We cannot ignore it, or risk becoming trapped within it. The writings of organizers and activities from various movements in America right now all boil down to a core idea that a strong, connected community is a key strategy against fascism.

Thankfully, it’s also the way we, as women and families, seem to naturally turn. It becomes painfully obvious very early on in parenthood that we cannot do this alone. And if you are someone who has maybe not yet reached out for help, or is reading this and going, “Ummm where is my village!??!?” I get that. You are not alone. You are not isolated. There is a community for you. You just have to find it (I wish I could do this part for you!).

If this piece resounded with you, I have an action item for you. Check in with another mom or parent. Check in on your community. Is there something small you can do for your neighbor? Can you drop off a meal to a family in need? Is there a cause which you care deeply about, for which you’d be willing to send a short email to ask how you might support them?

Nothing is too small – an act of kindness, a few dollars, a hot cup of coffee, an offer to babysit… each item adds up. I am here, hanging on, doing WELL, even, because of the community who took care of me. To each person, their act of generosity might not have meant much – a loaf of bread, a meal, a text checking in – but as a whole, it kept me going.

When a group of women shows up for each other? Watch out, world.

And when a whole community shows up for each other? …Let’s find out how much change we can shake up.