Home + Work: You are the community you seek

When I moved to Edmonds, I was newly pregnant with my second child. The first time I was pregnant, I grew a baby — and cankles. If you don’t know what cankles are, they’re thick legs right above your foot, a phenomenon where your calves and ankles lose their curves and angles as they swell and grow into each other. Depending on how they got there, they can be painful.

During that first pregnancy, I also had an office with a little blue recycling bin. I’d huff up the one flight of stairs from the parking lot in my building overlooking I-90, kick the bin onto its side, slide it under my desk, plop down in my office chair, and put my feet up for as much of the day as I could. 

My legs throbbed. My belly grew. 

By my final days in the office, I dreaded going in, mostly because of the comments:

“We didn’t know you could get any bigger!”

“You’re still here?” 

Et cetera. 

I sat most of the day while I was growing my son. In traffic. In meetings. At my desk. On the couch. Looking back, I suppose I was somewhat unhappy. I was definitely stressed. I ate a fair amount of boneless chicken wings from the Albertson’s salad bar by my office. 

By my second pregnancy, my belly grew with my relationship to Edmonds.

I pushed my toddler in a stroller up and down Sunset, tried every coffee shop, and took my son to the library to read about big cats and planets. We were so active that my cankles never grew, never even made an attempt. I did suffer from a bit of pregnancy-induced plantar fasciitis that my midwives suggested lacrosse balls would cure. So, I’d roll my foot on top of small, hard balls my son called my “blue balls,” and we’d laugh and laugh, him not in on the joke but the one who had started it all. 

I’ve mentioned quite a few times that I am an only child, and I believe part of my life journey is finding my community. Before a little bit of magic and good timing moved us to Snohomish County, I’d looked for it all my life — in my mom’s tiny hometown, at my sorority, in my extracurriculars — and when I moved to Edmonds, I knew I’d finally found it. 

And so, I dug my heels: I introduced myself to people, sought out and signed a local client, and used that client as an in with local business owners. I was a mom, and I wanted to be known as even more than a mom. I embedded myself in the community, posted about Edmonds on Instagram constantly, became a fixture at the farmer’s market, wrote blog posts with itineraries for my perfect day exploring the area, and maintained my fangirl momentum, even (and especially) through COVID. 

Naturally, as my kids have gotten older, I’ve found myself in more communities — through their preschools, their elementary school, their sports, and my daughter’s dance classes. We’ve expanded our mission at Explore Edmonds to write about cool, local businesses and happenings from Shoreline to Lynnwood and everywhere in between. I’ve made lots of friends, volunteered at events, and hosted workshops for small business owners. 

So, when I think about community, I think about how I created it in the place that finally felt like home, how I put myself out there and connected over and over and over again. And how I have no plans to stop. 

It really can be simple. I take a kindergarten approach to it — saying hello and my name, giving a genuine compliment, or commenting on a shared moment. I feel it out and go from there. I stay engaged. I used to watch the City Council meetings, but those got overwhelming and kept me up too late, so I think of the places around that make me feel good, and I invest in them. 

To become the community you seek, you have to participate. I happened to be at an awards ceremony for a local Rotary club a year or so ago, and the Person of the Year was a doctor who volunteered with a large handful of organizations around town. Few people knew he was a doctor because he didn’t really mention it. All they knew was that he showed up for them and that they loved him. That’s how I want to be—a lot of things, but engaged in my community most of all. 

Ask yourself, How can I help? Then raise your hand. 

Ask yourself, What am I naturally good at? Then find an easy way to do that for someone or something new. You don’t have to do it for free if you can’t or don’t want to, and it could be as simple as inviting a neighbor for a cup of coffee at your dining room table. 

Now, more than ever, it’s community that brings me joy and purpose. It’s in community that change happens and progress is made. 

You are the community you seek. So, what do you say? Build with me?

Whitney Popa is a writer, editor and consultant for little companies with big dreams. A born communicator, she connects people through stories. She believes strongly in many things, including expensive sweatsuits, off-road vehicles, good books and bad TV. With her two cats, two kids and one husband, Whitney splits her time between Edmonds and Waterville, WA.