Every day my community makes me grateful for continuous learning

the chance to live alongside neighbor-guides

who generously share their experience and skill

lending a hand, a story, a tool, a word educating without collecting tuition

requiring only that I show up with the willingness to receive.

It’s the toothless old man offering marriage advice in Centennial Park

or the time I learned to cross stitch a tear drop in the back room of a museum.

Once, a poet showed us how to slow down and observe a forest

and how can I forget the earnest kid gushing over their cockroach collection?

I give thanks for the pink-sneakered preservationist with Auburn Avenue stories of Septima Clark and John Lewis

the tall birdwatcher pointing out the fledgling blue birds on a power line

the woman on the train with a cart of books and insight on where to find free novels

a retiree in Piedmont Park describing the intricate ironwork crafted in his coastal hometown.

Every day I am finding new questions to ask

more experts at the MARTA stop

wisdom-bearers living down the street.

An educator at the sandwich shop tells me about counting butterflies

a kind-hearted immigrant assembles care packages for the hungry

a tour guide relays the history of our city through podcasts and pictures

a professor tests soil samples to reverse legacies of harm.

When I’m bound up in anxiety

overrun by loneliness or discouragement

I am set free by the gift of seeing my view refreshed by another’s experience

encouraged not only with knowledge

but a community of generous souls.