I've gotten a tremendous amount of aid in various support groups. When I started visiting them as an adjunct to therapy, my main focus was on food. I thought I was there to lose weight, and I was shocked and amazed to gain so much in accomplishment, community, and happiness. It got to be so that, when I would speak in those groups, after having dropped 160 pounds or so, I would say something like, "it's not about the food."
I now see that as insensitive revisionism. Until I dropped the weight, it was definitely about the food, even if it was also about other stuff.
I'm reminded of that as I check in about my experience as a member of the Robbins Farm gardening group. We are 15 people who are jointly farming a small plot of land at Robbins Farm Park, which is about a block from where we live in Arlington. Unlike most community gardens, we are not separate gardeners working connected plots. We're a cooperative group, working one plot of land together.