Community and our poker group...

I have found community in many different places through the years, and for me, the word community has concrete meaning.

Community when I was a new mom came from my church and meals showing up so we didn't have to cook in those early days. I found community with co-workers that extended beyond the 9 to 5 into happy hour and celebrating birthdays and weddings with each other. I longed for community when I moved to Kyle and needed to create it in different ways than I had in the past and so I started a neighborhood book club that had less to do with books than it did with getting together to form friendships.

The picture you see above is one of my favorite communities. It's our poker group and that picture was taken last January, on one of the last times we were able to meet before Covid changed all our lives.

The pandemic changed so much for all of us, didn't it? Some people more than others, but it certainly made our worlds smaller. Even my introverted friends who don't interact with others much talk about how it's harder now, if only because the choice has been taken away.

What we are seeing is a hunger for community. A hunger to step outside our bubbles and interact with people. A hunger to sit across a table from someone and share a good meal. Or play a game. Or talk about a hobby. We see this desire to find people locally who have shared interests because there is so much hope in the air right now!

The pandemic is not over and it's not time to relax our diligence, but there is a sense that we may actually get our lives back.

When our poker group formed, I knew I loved the game and that our group had a great energy, but I had no idea how important these particular people were to me. Throughout the past year we have checked on each other through our group chat, joked with each other, and kept that connection - that community. Even though it's been over a year since we've met, I think we all feel even closer to each other now.

Community is deeply tied to our humanity. And that has been severely disrupted.

But the time is coming to mend... and to build.

And we take our role in this seriously. We want our modelers, our painters, our gamers, our new friends to find each other and build it for themselves.

Y'all are gonna like each other so much!

We see people meeting and finding common interests in the store. We see numbers exchanged. On the Discord channel we see people starting to run online tournaments. We have our first paint class on Sunday. All over town, people are starting to engage with this new community.

It's brand new. If you are reading this, YOU are on the ground floor. Jump in! If you're not sure how, just ask.

There is so much room at the table!