Leaning Into Community

May 11

Words by Sara Rodrick | Photography by Henry Williford

A friend of mine takes me to see the wisteria near my apartment. He walks me through a path I know so well, past the baseball field, parking lot, and playground, where we would normally be having picnics to celebrate the arrival of spring. For now, we make due with the laggy FaceTime signal, filling 222 miles of distance with talk of muscadines, my eventual return to Auburn, everything but the coronavirus. I don’t have the heart to talk about it. Instead, I watch as the rear-facing camera suddenly reverses so that all I can see is his face, a smudge on my phone screen, his voice breaking up intermittently. I just smile. After all, this seems to be the first of many lessons in isolation—learning to find a little bit of charm in fuzzy camera quality and poor internet service. What it really means is that I’ve started listening more closely to everything my loved ones have to say for fear of missing something.

—

Today’s the day! Make the world right. Be kind to everyone you meet. So reads the banner from a Facebook group called CoronaKindness Auburn/Opelika where members can share the ways that our community has come together during the pandemic. While scrolling, I read about local restaurants and schools providing for those who are food-insecure. One gas station is offering to pump gas for senior citizens. People are giving what they can and taking what they need at pantry boxes like the one located on First Avenue in downtown Opelika just outside of Mama Mochas. Since I can’t participate in person, I desperately search for ways I can help from afar. Somehow my lists have turned into more lists, and my family jokes about my inability to sit and be still. To avoid the teasing, I try my best to be zen. Last week, I joined a virtual storytime, hosted by Auburn Oil Co. Booksellers and lounged in my bed as someone read from a children’s book, her daughter in the background dancing around gleefully. I didn’t think this dancing was what I needed, but it was, partly because it halted my obsession with doing and emptied me of the idea that there is only one way to act in solidarity.

Silver linings, however small, appear everywhere, mostly in the form of books at my front door, on the driveway, in the mailbox, placed there by friends who come and go silently. I was even gifted a penguin figurine from my ex who lives across the street. The best gift by far has been a tarot card reading, sent by a new acquaintance, whose words bring me clarity: “We must lead our lives with intent and vision. Lean into your community and chosen family.”

Amid all the inspiration and kindness, I admit I still find it difficult to live by these words, especially on days when I feel more indignation than gratitude. I start to selfishly wish I was back in Auburn. I start to miss every day before this one. And every day after, I continue to wonder if I’m doing enough. If I’m making the world right. If I’m leading with intent. If I’m living as if today’s the day. These are questions I find myself asking again and again during bouts of quarantine loneliness, questions I have no way of answering with certainty. What I know for certain is that the wisteria has already disappeared, my roommates have returned to their hometowns, too, and the next time we see each other in person, we’ll be repainting the walls and moving our furniture out in turns.

Of course, lockdown doesn’t mean the end of wisteria or life as we know it—I suppose my sadness seems rooted in something else. Perhaps because it seems that a season of my life as a post-grad twenty-something has been cut short. Perhaps because it hurts too much to think of my abandoned apartment: yellow curtains, dried flowers hanging in bundles, glass vases and pottery from nights long ago. These are the most vivid images I have of my last morning in Auburn, right before leaving for what I thought would be a short visit, called back to Mobile by my mom’s pleas as I mouthed the words too soon, too soon, too soon.

—

“Though it’s hard for me to imagine that the once vibrant areas of downtown Auburn and Opelika are now empty, I recall faces, rhythms, sounds. I understand that something of a spirit remains in all of this, that there are stories patched into our everyday movements in both extraordinary and ordinary ways.”

“My inspiration during these times has definitely been my customers. They are my light in these dark times. It is a special feeling when you start to recognize the people coming in to order the food and getting to know them and hear their stories,” Sunny Merchant, owner of Good Karma, writes.

I used to visit Good Karma almost every day in between classes when they were simply a food truck. I’d go out of my way for their delicious bowls of rice and curry and had been making plans for months to visit their storefront when it first opened in October. Even after I graduated, I was somehow able to convince myself that I was too busy to sit down for a nice meal. I never went, and then the pandemic hit, and I began wondering about those familiar faces in my life—not quite strangers, not quite acquaintances—who fed and nourished me daily. I’ve worried about the distant people I’d gotten used to in passing on my way to the coffee shop or the neighbors I’d hear through my walls, with their pots and pans clanging come time for dinner. And then, there were the rhythmic comings and goings at the tailor shop nearby, silhouettes closing doors in the early evening, as if signaling the train to pass.

Though it’s hard for me to imagine that the once vibrant areas of downtown Auburn and Opelika are now empty, I recall faces, rhythms, sounds. I understand that something of a spirit remains in all of this, that there are stories patched into our everyday movements in both extraordinary and ordinary ways. At the same time, I hold too soon and today’s the day in my head like a careful balancing act, and on any given day, one can appear much larger, much heavier than the other. I think, if nothing can go back to the way things were, because they shouldn’t, then I hope that we remain curious and inquisitive—that community and our sense of it continues to evolve—letting go of longing in exchange for imagining: Where are we hurting? How can we respond to the hurt? What do our neighbors need? What world can we envision for ourselves in the aftermath? Where will we go from here as a community? How might we heal together?