5 gatherings that refueled me this summer

Aug 13

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I've been slowing down this summer. I visited my mother. I’ve played Spit and War and Exploding Kittens and Bluff and Uno with my kids. I saw a dance performance that made me cry. I’m practicing my pickleball footwork. I’ve eaten too many BLTs (my family is still hotly debating if they should include avocados). I’ve put my phone down and really been with my people. And in this quiet, I’ve been trying to notice.

In that spirit, here are 5 gatherings that refueled me this summer and what they taught me.

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1. Movement can connect us in ways words struggle to.

This summer, I took my daughter to see the Trinity Irish Dance Company at Jacob’s Pillow — the oldest dance festival in the U.S., founded in 1933 on a former mountaintop farm in western Massachusetts. One of the pieces was, in the choreographer’s words, a “fever dream” of what he imagined might happen if a Twelfth of July parade and a Pride parade collided on the streets of Belfast. It was a riveting, can’t-look-away physical manifestation of group conflict and transformation through dance. Sitting in a packed, gorgeous, wooden theatre in western Mass, I was reminded of the power of dance to show us and help us feel and safely hold the energy and heat between people when words fail us.

2. People gather where they feel welcome.

Whenever I’m in the region, I try to stop by Golden Russet — a country store started by Jenny and Craig Cavallo, a couple who moved upstate from New York City five years ago with their two young kids. What they’ve built is more than a store or a diner, it’s become a kind of unofficial meeting point for the small town of Clinton, New York. Firefighters swing by for sausage-and-egg sandwiches. Local moms linger with coffee in the play area. Artists chat with hikers. Construction crews eat lunch next to old friends and new strangers at the communal table. And somehow — without over-orchestrating it — it all works. If artful gathering is about creating the kinds of spaces you wish existed in the world, Jenny and Craig have created a remarkable gathering place. It’s one country store. And it’s transformative.

3. Summer camps can be a backdoor to collective civic ritual.

My kids have been coming home from a local Y camp singing ditties I haven’t heard since childhood: Miss Mary Mack Mack Mack, I said a boom chicka a boom, My mom gave me a quarter, she said to get some water…and so on. And it’s been bringing me outsized joy. It’s been oddly moving (even startling) to hear them sing the very same chants I learned decades ago, but not learned at home. In a time when we seem to have fewer common songs and stories across the country, these children’s hand-clapping games seem to be traveling across the divides.

4. Creative containers help people find each other.

One of my favorite summer traditions is attending Upstate Art Weekend. It started – incredibly – from a single tweet from a woman, Helen Toomer, in the early days of the pandemic who desperately wanted to see other people outside with art, and asked folks if anyone would join her. That spark turned into a full-fledged weekend gathering that is now in its 5th year, and stretches across barns, fields, galleries, roadside installations, and pop-up spaces all over the Hudson Valley. We throw the kids in the car, map our route, and see what unfolds. It’s a wonderful example of how a “gathering” can change strangers’ perceptions of each other across a relatively-wide geography, and who is open for a visit. (Turns out, a lot of people.)

5. We haven’t figured out non-familial, intergenerational community — and are worse off for it.

Visiting my mother this summer in western Canada, I was reminded just how much wisdom, joy, and resilience live inside intergenerational communities. Her circle isn’t just made up of septuagenarians, it includes younger neighbors, old friends, people of all ages. They trade talents and stories and spice mixes and zucchini. They give each other rides and advice. As more and more people live far from their own families, we have become siloed within our own micro-generation – socially, digitally, even architecturally. We weren't meant to do life in age-based bubbles, but it’s come to feel more-or-less “normal.” It’s left me thinking about how and where people are intentionally cultivating non-familial, inter-generational meaningful community and exchange. (If you know, tell me!)

***

When we slow down and truly pay attention to our bodies, our people, our rituals, and our surroundings, we begin to notice the deeper patterns that make life meaningful. Gathering, at its best, is built on that kind of noticing.

If you’ve been part of this community for a while, you know it’s always evolving. On Tuesday, September 2, I’ll be sharing a new chapter: a fresh way for us to connect, learn, and practice the art (and the muscle) of doing life with other people. I can’t wait to show you what’s coming.

As always,
Priya

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Inspirations

Trinity Irish Dance Company in real time

This summer, the Trinity Irish Dance Company became the first Irish dance company to perform on the main stage at Jacob’s Pillow in the festival’s 93-year history. Watching them tear through the air felt both ancient and electrifyingly new. If you get a chance to travel there, check out Jacob’s Pillow’s library. It’s the largest collection of dance and movement and space books I’ve ever come across. I could spend days there.

At this summer camp run by grandmas, kids learn cooking skills and life advice

In Fullerton, California, a summer camp run by grandmothers is teaching kids how to cook, sew, and pass down stories one dish and one hand-stitched pocket at a time. It’s a rare intergenerational space where wisdom is shared, life skills are learned, and kids leave knowing what a thread snipper is and how to live in the moment. More of this, please.

I'm Still Here

Every year, the citizens of Santa Fe write down all of their anxieties and “glooms” from the past year, stuff them into a massive puppet, and stand around chanting “BUUUUUUURN HIIIIIM” together as it all goes up in flames. Feeling personally inspired to incorporate more effigy burning into my gatherings…

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