After 45 years in Missouri, I left many friends behind when my husband and I moved to Seattle. Some ties are hard to keep, but Zoom makes it easier.
We all got used to Zoom and other online meeting platforms during the pandemic. Before March 2020, I had participated in online webinars, but I’d only been in a couple of participatory meetings of the type that Zoom fosters. Almost all my regular meetings switched to Zoom by late spring 2020.
But most of these groups stopped Zooming after vaccines were available and we all got jabbed. Particularly the meetings that featured food. In-person gatherings are preferable to the Hollywood Squares appearances of online meetings. Even if in-person meetings require one to dress from head to toe and commute to the meeting location.
Still, it turns out that Zoom is a great way to maintain connections after a long-distance move. Three of my groups in Kansas City have added a Zoom option, and a fourth had never resumed in-person meetings after the pandemic.
- My favorite book club, a group of women from my corporate days, had a hybrid meeting last week. Four members gathered in person, and two of us joined via Zoom. It worked pretty well. Not perfectly, as it is too easy to talk over each other in a hybrid meeting. But it was so nice to see familiar faces, even if I couldn’t eat the snacks.
- My weekly critique group has been in place since 2013, and it’s the one group I try to keep on my calendar as frequently as possible. This group has critiqued all eight of my published novels, as well as my current work-in-progress. I have committed to staying with them at least until I publish this next novel (I hope by mid-2025). Given my move and various health issues of other members, our meetings have been a little spotty over the last couple of months. And technology is a challenge in this group. But we have agreed to persevere, and last Thursday we had a great meeting—two members in person at one location, myself and another Zooming in.
- My other writing critique group started meeting online during the pandemic and never resumed in-person meetings. Some members of this group helped get me started as a writer, and they became good friends. I haven’t participated much in that group in the last year, as I tried to streamline my commitments while we moved. But I look forward to joining them occasionally now.
- And the marketing/publishing group (Write Brain Trust) that I have been in since around 2011 also decided to start hybrid meetings. This is another group that I stepped away from over the past year, and I look forward to participating online sometimes.
I want to find new communities in Seattle, and I have taken baby steps to do so. But I do not want to lose connections and friendships built over 45 years, and I appreciate Zoom as one way to maintain them.
How have you used Zoom and other online platforms since the pandemic ended?
