I believe there is strength in the differences between us. I know there is comfort, where we overlap. I know there is safety, where we are known. In my town, community lives.

In my town this week, we are losing our independent pharmacy, the town is in mourning about that, it is a loss that cuts deep.

But I have to say that community lives here, and will continue to live. We are known to one another here, whether we like one another or not. I don’t care to live in a place where we don’t look out for each other. Not just the people we know, who are close to us, but anybody who finds themselves alone, frightened, or in need. I cannot change the way anybody else sees things, I cannot tell anyone else what to believe, but I can do my part to support my community, and be a part of it. It took me a lifetime to learn that.

Some people in my community like me, some find me strange and I know I make some uncomfortable. But I am known, and I am tolerated, I know that community is what we all seek, in one way or another.  I know we are all alike in so many ways, as different as we are.

Today Bridget and Margaret were under siege in their doomed pharmacy, people pouring in to say goodbye, bring presents, offer thanks, remark on a changing world, to shed some tears with her. We aren’t moving away, Bridget said over and over again. We will still be here.

Maria loves going to the Post Office, she and Wendy are friends, they know one another. When I went to the post office one day to buy stamps for Maria, Wendy gently reminded me that Maria preferred stamps with animals or plants. I didn’t know that.

They laugh, talk, share a bit of their lives with one another. Community lives in our post office.

A month ago, a tree blew down in our back yard. I come from a world where men and women are helpless, we have to call other people to take care of our own lives. In my town, different men in pickup- trucks pulled into the driveway for days asking me if I needed help, if I wanted help taking the tree down.  I am going to call somebody, I kept saying, pridefully. You don’t need to do that, the men told me, we all  have chainsaws.

My friend Ed Gulley, the dairy farmer is doing it this weekend.

At the Over The Moon Bead Shop, Heather is often found sitting on the sidewalk, reading a book. She calls me over and tells me when she gets the colorful socks that Maria loves, and that I like to buy for her, since she will never buy anything for herself.

A week ago, at the Round House, people came from all over the country to share the songs they had written, their poetry, to stand up in front of other people and share their creativity. Community is what the Round House is all about, we see one another there, we know one another.

When Simon died of a stroke in our back yard, and we were stunned, our yard filled up with neighbors and friends, they sat with us, helped us move the body, helped us bury it. No one would take any money for anything.

At the Moses Farm Stand where I go to buy corn and vegetables,  Judy, an artist who works there in the summer, offers me her pass to the Clark Museum when I tell her we want to see the Van Gogh exhibit at the museum. I just met Judy this summer, I only see her when I buy vegetables, I hardly know her, but she knows who I am. How generous an offer, we don’t need to take it, but it feels good to be offered it.

At Battenkill Books, our local bookstore, the store was closed today, Connie Brooks is renovating, she is opening up a children’s book section at the end of the store, she is growing and expanding at a time when bookstores are supposed to be dying and closing. She is a victory for community. She won an award to help her improve the store.  Our community supports Connie’s store, they support the idea of books and individuality. We wondered if she could survive the new world, it seems she can.

At Hubbard Hall, the old Opera House in the middle of town, kids gather there every day to sing, dance and put on their plays. it is a community supported arts center, the community saved the old Opera House and maintains it still. Local people volunteer there, sell tickets, design sets, act in plays. Put on operas.

My dentist’s office called the other day to remind me of an appointment, we look forward to seeing you, they said, and don’t forget to bring Red. Don’t come in without him.

A farmer friend comes over with his nephew and a hundred bales of second cut hay at a very good price. Pay when you can, he says (I wrote a check), we know where to find you. I’ll drop off some firewood.

At the Cambridge Diner, the old-timers and the townspeople gather every day before work to have breakfast. At Stewart’s convenience stores, the workmen gather in their trucks to get their coffee and grunt and grumble with one another. I do not go there, I would not know what to say to these big men, but they never fail to stop every day and talk to one another.

At the gym last week, a woman came up to me and said she would love to meet Fate one day, she has been watching her progress on the blog, and could she bring her mother, who misses her border collie so much, she died some years ago. Of course, I said, bring her by.

At the Round House Cafe, Maria meets every week with the good witches, her friends. They laugh and smile and cry together, there is a halo of white light over them.

Last year, the farmhouse needed some serious work, we were short on cash, the bill was going to be bigger than we expected, it might take a week or so to pay you, I said to the carpenter. No sweat, he said, I know where you live. Pay when you can.

So we are losing Bridget’s pharmacy this week, but we are not losing our community.

Community is fragile, the world changes, we are not immune to it.

But community lives in my town, and I do not believe it can ever be taken away.  It is organic, it rises and falls, retreats and regroups. It does not go away. We are committed to it, we will fight for it. All over the country, people struggle to be known, they struggle with not being known. We are known.

The politicians and economists have pummeled and abandoned and robbed and raped rural communities for generations now, taking away jobs and resources, steering people to the cities and suburbs far from nature and the land, to jobs they hate working for people who care nothing about them.  The small businessperson and the individual fight to survive in our impersonal and fragmented Corporate Nation.

We are making our stand here.

Try as they might, they can’t kill community in my town. We still remember what people are for.