Welcome to Visions of Community!
Exploring what it means to belong — through stories, research, and honest conversation about
loneliness, culture, and the ties that bind us.
It all started with my plans to retire and write a hardcover ‘coffee table’ book on Neighborhoods - a combination of text + photos. A few years later, I took a writing class via Zoom from an earlier editor I had known through work.
There were about 10 women in the class from across the country, and in the first week, they convinced me to expand my subject to community. The End.
That’s the short of it.
Here’s the long version:
I consider myself fortunate in so many ways. I’ve enjoyed a fulfilling career in higher education and academic publishing, and made lasting friendships in the process. I’ve had time to ramble around and explore daily life, and have been blessed with an adventurous, optimistic spirit.
I moved to a beach community after living in the same place for many years. My retirement plans were set, and I planned to work another couple of years from the new location. The slight setback of Hurricane Katrina, which wiped out almost all of what I owned, left me in a no-man’s land, but it led me to become obsessed with exploring the many types of communities in this country. I wanted to understand why and how people choose their way of living.
When one has some belonging and loses it, the obsession with the safety and comfort of a community never really leaves you again. If we lose ourselves, finding our way back can be difficult. There is no compass, no roadmap. We just have to take a step and hope we get there.
The vision started with a book. The reason I decided to expand it was because books are static, fixed, and unchanged. A website, blog, or newsletter is dynamic - constantly changing, updating, and expanding. It’s an ongoing journey of finding belonging, discovering how others live, and what we may find for ourselves in the process.
It’s a crooked road I travel in this passage, but I’ve always been a restless soul, and it’s mostly been about that adventure on down the road.
“I am of course lost in this journey I’m on .. but I do remain confident. Though I am lost it will be a Great Adventure; this adventure will surpass my wildest imagination. So call me a fool, but I’m happy to be lost.”
~ Micheline Jean Louis ~