Taking Turns

I've been away quite a bit during the past few weeks. If you came looking and didn't find me, thank you for your patience.

Some of that was the good kind of away. Some of it was heavier.

In short, I've been sitting with my mom as she navigates some big decisions about her health. We've had the kinds of conversations you imagine happening one day, but that still take you by surprise when they arrive.

It's all got me thinking about a turning that's been happening as long as there have been humans. A quiet change in roles that's as old as we are.

You know this shift. You've probably lived some of it yourself.

In our earliest moments, someone older cares for us. Completely at first. Then less completely, as we learn to tie our own shoes and find our own way home. Then, the hands that steadied us are the ones that need steadying. Slowly, we begin to take our turn.

The truth is: No generation is exempt from the rotation.

It isn't only a family thing, either.

It happens here, too.

It happens at Imagine Cincinnati’s playgroups, where our youngest neighbors are cared for collectively by a attentive adults who have learned each other's kids' names. It happens when the elementary kids at Coffee Cup and the teens at Sidewalk Hospitality start showing up as volunteers, learning to care for the neighbors who not long ago were caring for them.

It's the same turning at neighborhood speed.

It's beautiful. It grows us. And in an age that keeps finding new ways to be inhumane, it returns us to the thing we share: our humanity.

Care isn't a debt we pay back to the person who gave it. It only ever moves forward. We receive it from one set of hands and pass it along to the next. That movement is what makes any community worth living in.

While I've been away, all of it kept happening without me. Which is, I think, the best news I could give you.

Over the past couple weeks, more and more teens have been stopping by Sidewalk Hospitality. That fact doesn't really surprise me, particularly because open and inviting third places for teens are becoming harder and harder to find. Yesterday, there were thirteen people under the age of fifteen out on the front porch, talking and laughing. The adults inside sat and smiled at each other. Because seeing that kind of collective care take shape on its own is about the most encouraging thing you can witness on a Tuesday afternoon.

Last Saturday, Georgia, our summer intern, hosted a beautiful arts event that filled our campus with neighbors, art, and music. I'll be sharing more about that soon, with photos. But for now, let me say the future is in good hands. Our young people are kind, courageous, and already taking their turn.

Of course, my time away wouldn't have been possible without Jessica, Georgia, Britni, Ezra, Kenneth, and Java'e. They kept the doors open, the coffee brewed, and the patio full of life. I came back to a place that had been well loved while I was gone, even after it flooded.

Which was a real gift.

And a reminder that none of us carries any of it forever. We take our turn. Then someone takes a turn for us. And a place like this is here to make sure the turning keeps happening.

In other words, Community Happens Here exists to make sure someone learning to care has space to meet someone who needs it.

Today, it's a thirteen-year-old on our front porch, making room for somebody new. Someday, it will be their turn to sit inside and smile.

Thank you for taking yours.