It Takes a Village: Reclaiming Community in a Disconnected World

During the pandemic, something in me broke wide open.

Open to a new depth of understanding.

Broken not just from exhaustion or the isolation of long days with young children—but from the aching absence of something deeper, something ancient.

Community.

I was on maternity leave with my babies, far from family, tucked in a province away from the people I loved. Alone. The stillness of lockdowns magnified that loneliness. There were no visits, no helping hands, no shared meals or knowing glances from a fellow mother at the park. Just me, trying to hold it all together, feeling the unraveling thread of what once bound us all: connection.

For generations before us, women gathered in circles. They fed one another’s children. They held space for each other’s tears. They passed down wisdom and wore their shared burdens like woven tapestries of resilience.

In many parts of the world—especially across eastern cultures—this still exists. It’s been refined and reshaped for modern life, but the spirit remains: the village, the tribe, the collective heartbeat.

Yet here in the West, we are taught to be islands.

To figure it out alone.

To hustle through pain, to push through struggle, and to wear our suffering like a badge of honour.

Help is whispered like a secret. Asking for it? Seen as weakness.

But I know now—deeply, soulfully—that asking for help is not a weakness.

It is wisdom.

It is courage.

It is knowing yourself well enough to say, “I cannot do this alone. I was never meant to.”

Ancestrally, I come from an eastern culture.

My family immigrated to Canada under the weight of a communist regime in Romania. They brought with them stories, recipes, rituals—and a belief in togetherness. But over generations, in this melting pot of identities and adaptations, those roots sometimes feel forgotten, or silenced under the pressure to assimilate and “do it all.”

Yet I see it now. I feel it stirring again.

In quiet community gardens. In moms’ groups that feel more like sacred circles. In open conversations around mental health and motherhood.

There is a quiet uprising of souls longing to return to one another.

I'm inspired.

I'm in awe.

Because the truth is, it still takes a village.

To raise our children.

To keep ourselves whole.

To remind one another that we’re not alone.

Let us remember that community is not a luxury—it is a necessity.

It is how we soften the edges of our days.

It is how we heal.

And as we find our way back to each other, we create not just support systems,

but sanctuaries.

Places where we can live more freely, more fully, more humbly—and more joyfully.

Together.

With Love,

Mel Watts