It started with “basecamp.” We chose that name because we wanted FiKee to be somewhere people could pause, rest, and get ready for their next journey. Some days, it feels more like a shared living room. The keepers who look after the place and the finders who discover it fall into conversation, and a little gathering takes shape. Sometimes we organize those gatherings ourselves: reading together to build a habit, or sharing questions as the year draws to a close. We head into the forest together. We stay up reading through a summer night.
At some point, “community” became a convenient word for all of this. We live in an age of communities, after all. Anyone with a place to bring people together—or simply a reason to gather—can start one. But the more I used the word, the more weight it seemed to carry. As someone who loves these gatherings and often brings them about, I felt I needed a clearer sense of what it meant to me.
I’ve been reading and looking things up, trying to answer a simple question: “What is a community?” I still don’t have a clear answer. Perhaps that’s inevitable. Communities take so many forms, depending on why people gather and what they do together.
And so many different people pass through FiKee. Some come for coffee, some to read, some for a conversation or a group activity. Others have never visited the café but join us in making reading a daily habit. Some have neither visited nor taken part in anything, but follow us online. There are regulars—former regulars?—who rarely stop by these days but still wish us well, and people who return after a long absence and pick up where they left off. You can’t draw a boundary by asking whether someone has visited in the past year or attended an event. Who belongs to this community, and who doesn’t? The distinction starts to feel rather blurry.
One thing is clear: we keep needing one another. FiKee gives finders ways to put their spirit of adventure into practice and keep it alive. Or perhaps it’s simpler than that: on some days, they just feel drawn here, without quite knowing why. And FiKee needs finders who share what we care about and want to carry it forward with us. We need people who read and venture out together, then bring their own adventures back to share with others.
Perhaps a community is simply people who keep needing—and shaping—one another. Within that community, FiKee changes shape too: a basecamp, a shared living room, a gathering. And my role as a community builder is to suggest things we might need, gather the stories that unfold, and share them more widely.
That’s the first conclusion I’ve reached as I begin this journey. What kind of time together have we needed most?
(Next: Reading Camp…)