Being in community

A few rows away, some people are hugging each other. One woman was crying and then she turned around and boarded the plane for which we were on standby.

She had been trying all afternoon to get back to San Francisco because her mother was in the ICU, but was on the same flight we were. The Romeros decided to give up their seats so she could get home faster, even though the rest of their family had already boarded the plane. They had all been in town for their niece’s wedding — an epic one at that from all recounts.

We are in an era of travel where people are forced to pay more for specific seats on an airplane even when those are the only seats they can select, and this only drives feelings of deservedness and ownership. So when an exhausted mom asks the person sitting next to her if they are willing to switch so her partner can help take care of the baby too and that person says no, it’s rooted in this place of feeling like a transaction has taken place and they are entitled to that space. And it has. And they are. 

But we are also humans who live in community with one another. 

This idea of living in community was spotlighted throughout the week for me in various ways — as my childhood friends and I spent two days listening, sharing and reminiscing, as my neighborhood came together for our annual holiday party and lights judging contest, through weddings and other celebrations. But we also were served an important reminder of what living in community means by San Mateo Sustainability and Infrastructure Commissioner Kimi Narita: 

“Streets belong to all 105,000 of us … and some of the language used [in public comments] makes it sound that that square footage in front of someone’s home belongs to that home and the people in that home. But in fact, that piece of street belongs to me, it belongs to you, and it belongs to all 105,000 of us in the city. It is the definition of living “in community” that sometimes we have to be inconvenienced for the sake of our fellow community members.”

There is a lot more to Commissioner Narita’s and other commissioners’ comments that warrant listening to (that I don’t have the word count to print), and ask that you take the time to do so. 

But what is very clear here is that the notion of being “in community” in a post-internet and hyper-connected world has to evolve. It can no longer just be about who you immediately know but also about who you come in contact with throughout your days and weeks. The stranger in 14C. The couple that gave up their spot on the flight. The exhausted gate agent rebooking 200 passengers.

We each hold an enormous amount of power to impact those around us in so many of our choices. And the strange thing about the internet is that it simultaneously shrinks and expands our sense of community. We can feel deeply connected to someone across the world we’ve never met and completely ignore the person standing right next to us in line. We can feel deep pain in scrolling through tragedy on our phones while tuning out the heartbreaking conversation happening at the next table.

The Romeros didn’t know the woman trying to get to her mother’s bedside and they will probably never see her again. And yet, in that moment, they treated her like family because they understood something fundamental about what it means to be human alongside other humans.

Late into the evening as we await the arrival of our plane, the Romeros are tired but in good spirits. They did an incredibly selfless thing to no fanfare and showed that living in community also means being inconvenienced for the sake of someone you’ll never see again — because it very much matters.