Finding Community From A Photograph

I haven’t been able to blog for a long time, so this one is dedicated to Lowri Jones, Susan Davies Sit, Susan Jenkins Meers, Beth Roberts Brown, Evan Williams and Annie Rodgers. Thank you for inspiring me again.

I got off the monthly happy hour call across the ocean with a few of the aforementioned ladies and shed a few tears. I grimaced as they shared some exceptionally kind words with me, but after I sat with it once offline, I became quite overwhelmed. When you’re alone most of the time, you don’t hear these too much.

It reminded me of how the conversation began - talking about the power and importance of community. Weirdly, me being welcomed into this amazing community of Welsh women and American women with Welsh ancestry began from a photograph.

I was living in Tennessee and decided to post a very old photo I had of the Menai Strait on the Images of Anglesey Facebook page. It was an image I took after visiting Ysbyty Gwynedd where my Nana, Menai, would pass a few days later. Not long after posting that photo, a message popped up on my Facebook messenger from a woman named Lowri. I have to admit that I was a bit “stranger danger” at first. What can I say, I watch too much true crime! I am thankful I responded now because Lowri has brought me into the community of amazing women of the Welsh Society of Western New England. Why they accepted me I’ll never know. I’ve never even been to Western New England!

I’m so thankful to this wonderful group of ladies for embodying what is so powerful about community. Us Welsh folk are known for finding each other across the globe or in a crowded room. Our oral traditions made us rely on that community spirit and it’s been so heartening to see this in real life. Hearing their stories and learning from them has been an absolute joy.

Never underestimate the power of a photograph, a kind word, a video, a blog or even just extending a hand to a stranger in creating communities that you didn’t even know you needed. I never could have imagined that a picture on an iPhone 3 back in 2010 would have brought me to Lowri and her friends 9 years later. You never truly know what sharing your voice or your heart into art may do. It may just bring you to some of the best people you know.

Thank you ladies for the wisdom you share, your caring hearts, the insight that only you can have that this younger and more ignorant woman needs and for your humour and grace. You inspire me and I’m so thankful to be able to learn, listen and be around you, albeit virtually. You are the truest sense of community in a world that is slowly losing this. I am grateful for your example and thank goodness I posted that photo 14 years ago.

Here’s the photo:

Here’s what it led me to: