It's hard to meet people here in the winter because everyone stays inside, but today was the beginning of spring weather and we had a great Shabbos afternoon very similar to when we first moved here. Everyone walks around visiting each other, people sit out on their lawn, and you meet a lot of new faces. In the 10 minute walk to my in-laws, we ran into friends we hadn't seen in months, who introduced me to a woman walking by that I had spoken to on the phone but never met. Then my son ran ahead and started talking to another little boy, and we ended up schmoozing with the parents for a while.
The best experience like this happened our third day here. We got to Cleveland on Friday and Shavuos was on Sunday night. So on Sunday we were buying food and met someone in the store. She told me that every year her friend gave an open ice cream social on Shavuos, and told me to just show up. I am normally really shy about doing something like that but I thought it couldn't hurt so I went over and there were a ton of people standing around outside. One of them immediately introduced herself, then stuck with me throughout the next hour introducing me to various people. A few weeks later, she arranged a meal with several other couples with kids my son's age so we could make those connections.
To me, this is the true meaning of a community and I love it.
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1 comment:
Sounds like a community of some pretty nice people, I love walking in the street and meeting acquaintances, just a hi and how are you, but you feel someone knows who you are between the billions of people passing the large avenues everyday.
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