The Call

Do you yearn for more meaning in your everyday life?

Do you strive to fill your days with fulfilling hobbies and personal interactions?

Do you seek out wisdom books, popular psychology, and memoirs as if they’re the very air you need to stay alive?

Do you create every day, write a record of your thoughts and dreams, and demand that you photograph and preserve all of your important memories?

Do you crave time outside in nature, and feel the effects of its absence?

If this sounds at all familiar, I’m looking for YOU!

I’m looking for my tribe.

I’m looking for people that I can talk with for hours about the most important questions we humans face.

I want to discuss the perils of keeping a journal, the triumphs and challenges of the creative process, and life’s biggest moments.

I’m looking for kindred spirits who relish travel and the excitement of learning new things.

I want to speak with you about the books you’re loving right now and the deeper thoughts they’re inspiring within you.

I want to hear all about your personal struggles and share mine with you. We can help each other with solidarity and compassion.

I’d love to find someone to talk to about where we stand on the “what are you doing with your life” question.

I want to attend meaningful events and explore mindfulness practices with you. I want to get out there and try new things!

I am so excited to learn from you. I can’t wait to hear about the amazing interests you hold that are new to me.

I yearn to be inspired by your inspiration and your imagination.

Human connection is so very important.

Now that I’ve graduated from the friendship haven of University, I’m suddenly not surrounded with people my age and with similar interests. I’m all alone in a big city, without much of an idea where to start finding MY PEOPLE.

While listening to Liz Gilbert’s “Magic Lessons” podcast this week, she gave the following advice to a poet who desperately needed a supportive community:

“Academia at its best provides (and should provide) a beautiful fertile ground for people to come together and to have the time and space to talk about ideas and to talk about creation. I didn’t get an MFA. I went searching for other people had the same longing. It was not difficult to find them. I just focused on it, and I asked around, and I found people who I knew wanted to be [artists] the same way that I did. And then I made the structure… The great institutions sometimes disappoint us, because we go there seeking a communion that we do not find… Go out into your community and find people who have the same longing that you have, and bring them to you. If you don’t have that, you MAKE it. That is one of the ultimate creative acts that you will ever do… It’s not difficult to find people who wish to create. They are EVERYWHERE. They are out there. If you can provide a beacon light to bring them to you, then you can be the person instigating those conversations. That’s something that you can make, that you MUST make.”

I’m starting to get out there. I’ve looked at Meetups and attended random events around town, hoping to meet a friendly soul or two.

In honor of Liz, I’ve decided to send out my own call.

If you are in the Austin area, in your 20s, and feel that any of these things are stirring your heart, PLEASE let me meet you!

I’m not sure if anybody is even reading this that may fit this description… in which case, I feel a little bit like Julie in “Julie and Julia” when she says “Is there anyone out there reading me?”

If that’s the case, and if I’m just preaching to the choir of lovely souls across the state and the country who I already consider part of my precious inner circle, then I’m posting this simply in the hope that my words will manifest themselves in my life.

I’m sending out the call– I’m spreading the word– I’m speaking the message.

As Liz says, “I am seeking community on this subject. Is anybody with me? Does anybody want to talk about this?”

Now all there is to do is wait…
And maybe go to a few dozen other get togethers in my neighborhood. ;)

“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” ― Mother Teresa

Mandi