Having each other's backs

And why I love my community

Photo by Nina Strehl on Unsplash

This week, a cute kid ran up our porch, rang our doorbell and dashed off. He did a ding, dong, ditch. He hopped onto his bike where his friends were waiting on theirs in the road.

“Go! Go! Go!” they yelled.

“I think they released the dogs,” one cried. “Oh no! The dogs!”

I posted the Ring video of this to my Facebook because I thought it was adorable: this kid getting a rush of being brave, not being on a screen, hanging out with his crew, living life. We laughed a lot in my house about how adorable this was.

And people did the same on my Facebook post. And here’s the thing: they all knew who this kid was but none of them named him until his mom showed up in the thread.

Why is that?

It’s because they had this kid’s back (even though it was super obvious in my post that we loved the fact that he played ding, dong, ditch).

And that? That’s what my community is about so often. It’s what my community needs to stay about even in times of political strife and insecurity and decreased housing stock and wages that aren’t keeping up with the cost of buying flour or produce.

Our community, Bar Harbor, has a lot of tourism-based industry and increase in visitors from May through October because it’s next to a national park and it’s beautiful and it’s on a Maine island. For the past two years, it’s been making national news over and over again because of cruise ship disembarkation limits and lawsuits.

That’s not what our community is about. It’s not even close.

The afternoon after the ding-dong-ditch that same kid was playing baseball at a Halloween baseball game that another young boy (12) organized to collect goods for our local food pantry. It was adorable and fun and an experience.

And that? That’s what this community is about.

That same afternoon was the first day of a two-day event called Music Harbor where people went and listened to local bands at various venues all around time. It was organized by a guy from away who works here now who gets a lot of flak because he’s also the Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce president and isn’t in favor of strict cruise ship caps.

But he organized something, made something, for this community.

And that’s what community is about.

The island (we have 10,000 people or so) hosted a world-class marathon this weekend, local schools, businesses, teams, and nonprofits welcomed and took care of runners all along the 26.2 mile course. Tons of money went to local nonprofits, too. Southwest Harbor created a pretty amazing finish line festival to celebrate.

And that’s what community is about.

This same weekend, Mainely Meat on Dreamwood Hill raised money to fight breast cancer; kids celebrated in a homecoming dances; artists led classes; poets gave readings; families and friends hiked trails and broke bread and lived. Together.

In the CIA, in the military, if you don’t have each other’s backs, you die.

That’s extreme, right? But I think that it’s something that we might want to cultivate a bit more of in our communities. Not that dire consequence, but the willingness, the desire to have everyone else’s back, to create things, to celebrate each other and life, to have adventures and experiences, and like in that marathon and at that game and festival—to applaud each other for being there, for trying, for living with us, too.

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