Asheville

I’ve spent six summers in Asheville, NC but I wouldn’t say it is like home for me. It is more like what I want home to be than what it is. You meet and see every kind of person in Asheville. The stories (and people) are as high as the mountains. Downtown on a Friday night offers the best entertainment – the drum circle – where anyone and everyone brings their beat and you can see up to 20 people beating while 80+ are dancing. It was there that a stranger told me to dance to the beat inside my head and I’ve been dancing to that beat ever since.
Just this past, and potentially last, summer in Asheville I discovered West End Bakery and I spent at least an hour of all my time off at this quaint neighborhood coffee shop. It was there that I developed a taste for different blends of coffee and I love that their granola has sunflower seeds. I remember ordering my usual one day and the barista handed my change to me and said “Here you go, my friend.” And I thought how beautiful is it that all this stranger and I have ever shared is a cup of coffee and we in some way are already friends.
This is from a poster in the shop that I love and have written down numerous times. It’s about community, Asheville revolves around being a green community, and I can honestly say I feel like the majority of people in Asheville live this out.
How to Build Community
• Turn off your TV
• Leave your house
• Know your neighbors
• Look up when you are walking
• Greet people
• Sit on your stoop
• Plant flowers
• Use your library
• Play together
• Buy from local merchants
• Share what you have
• Help a lost dog
• Take children to the park
• Garden together
• Support neighborhood schools
• Fix it even if you didn’t break it
• Have pot lucks
• Honor elders
• Pick up litter
• Read stories aloud
• Dance in the street
• Talk to the mail carrier
• Listen to the birds
• Put up a swing
• Help carry something heavy
• Barter for your goods
• Start a tradition
• Ask a question
• Hire young people for odd jobs
• Organize a block party
• Bake extra and share
• Ask for help when you need it
• Open your shades
• Sing together
• Share your skills
• Take back the night
• Turn up the music
• Turn down the music
• Listen before you react to anger
• Mediate a conflict
• Seek to understand
• Learn form new and uncomfortable angles
• Know that no one is silent though many are not heard
• Work to change this


- A