Webs

Green fields covered in bright yellow dandelions, a pointillist’s delight.  Spring comes so slowly, and then all at once.  I missed writing about the time of green mist, when the trees on the hillsides were covered with the tenderest new leaves.  I missed writing about the first daffodils on that south facing slope at the side of Route 28 just on the edge of Cooperstown heading towards Oneonta. And now there are already clouds of forget-me-nots, and the leaves on our trees are big enough to start blocking my view of the sky.  The buds are growing daily on the lilacs that Louise planted next door decades ago.  The apple trees that George planted some 20 years ago just down the hill from us on Beech Street are blooming. So much of spring is personal here.  Jane Clark gives away hundreds of daffodil bulbs most years, and people talk about their Jane Clark daffodils.  I have the early shoots of my Molly bleeding hearts.  There is a great sharing of garden bounty, and in the spring we remember who gave us what, and when we planted it.  This is part of the web of our community, part of what binds us.  

Wednesday night the League of Women Voters held a candidate forum for the three people running for two open seats on the school board.  When we prepare for these candidate events we’re always a little nervous.  There has been some conflict between the school board and the teachers’ union, and we thought there might be some hostile questions.  But in the event, the 50 or so citizens asked polite and thoughtful questions – not softballs, but short and to the point.  We only give questioners a minute each, so that eliminates speeches from the floor.  The candidates were all well qualified, and they all actually answered the questions that were asked.  One candidate, a Bassett Hospital surgeon, talked extensively about investing in our schools as a crucial aspect of investing in our community in her answers.  She reminded home owners that their higher property taxes would result directly in the appreciation of their homes as better schools drive home values up.  But it wasn’t mostly about the money – the conversation focused mostly on how we can serve our kids well, all of them.  This is still a village that hopes its children will stay here, and that young families from elsewhere will want to settle here.  The schools, with their sports teams, their plays and concerts, their morning traffic jams are a big part of the web too.

Tuesday night was the monthly Welcome Home Cooperstown, started by a Bassett doctor three years ago with the aim of helping hospital residents connect to the community and consider staying here after they completed their residencies.  It’s always a fun evening, out on the library lawn in good weather, and crammed into the library during the winter.  There’s always live music and food is provided by a different organization each month.  The sponsoring organization gets to make a short presentation, and maybe a new person decides to join the Friends of the Parks, or Rotary, or the League of Women Voters.  It’s a time to reconnect with friends and to meet new people, to hear their stories about where they’re from, where they’re living now, and how they’re liking Cooperstown.  We want them to stick to the web – not for a spider’s dinner, but to make our community stronger.

You can see that I’ve been thinking about community a lot.  I listened to a talk recently about what draws people to mass movements like MAGA, and the biggest factor seems to be loneliness.  Driving around the countryside here, the farmhouses with the big TRUMP signs are often isolated.  It’s as if these people, living separately, want to declare their connection to something as loudly as they can.  I’m sure there are Trump supporters who have families and friends, who belong to church communities or the PTA, who do feel connected, part of the social web.  But they’re probably not the ones with the huge signs on their barns or garage doors.  If there were Trump supporters at the school board candidate forum or at Welcome Home Cooperstown, they were quiet about their affiliation.  There were no MAGA hats.  We don’t have to deny our differences to gather in community, but when our focus is on strengthening the community, our differences take a back seat.

Living here, watching the seasons turn, seeing the renewal of life all around us, it’s easy to remember that we are small parts of the big web.