Before I say yes, I check the time.
I open Google Maps.
I check the route.
Thirty minutes, plus traffic.
Then parking.
Street parking. Paid garage. Rideshare suggested.
I zoom out to see what else is nearby since I will already be in the area.
Slight detour. Total time: 55 minutes.
It’s late.
I will just stay for an hour.
Without thinking about it, I measure the distance between where I live and where community is happening.
Gathering always takes effort, but I wonder how much effort it should take before belonging starts to feel like a calculation.
When I first moved to Austin, I told myself finding community was about trying harder. Saying yes more. Staying longer. Introducing myself first. I carried a quiet question from my first year: is it the city, or is it me?
But what if it is not me?
What if it is proximity?
Unlike the few cities in the United States where Black people form a majority, most of us in the Austin area live scattered across the metro. Some people are in Pflugerville. Others in Round Rock. Others further south past Slaughter Lane or north toward Cedar Park. We orbit the city from different directions.
Here, Black culture does not always gather in one obvious place. There is no single corner pulsing with familiarity, no stretch of blocks where recognition meets you halfway. Instead it appears in moments: pop-ups, markets, panels, and planned community gatherings. It appears in bookstores and events where care has been put into making Black culture visible.
Many of those moments happen closer to the center of the city, often somewhere between East Austin and downtown.
Most of us travel to reach them.
Many of the events I attend stretch across the city. One weekend pulls me toward a downtown DJ set, another carries me further east for a cultural event or a pop-up bar. South, I drift into a curated gathering; north, I find myself at karaoke and R&B bingo. Each place a small pulse, each corner a chance to feel Black culture in motion. I don’t make it to all of them every week, but even picking and choosing brings the friction of moving from one place to the next into the experience. Even when people are warm. Even when I feel welcomed, the logistics of commuting and juggling priorities quietly shape whether I can root myself and let belonging feel like a daily routine rather than an occasional treat.
Because everything is spread out, I rarely visit just one place at a time.
If I am already driving into the city, I make a list: a bookstore, a tea shop, a gallery, a curated event, maybe a park, and a meal at a restaurant I saved months ago. I try to collect the feeling while I am there because I do not know when I will return. I linger a little longer than necessary, as though proximity could be bottled for later.
As I move through multiple spaces in a single afternoon, I notice the small ways Black culture appears. It is in gestures, shared glances, and unplanned interactions that make a room feel alive. These are third spaces in motion, flashes of culture and connection woven into everyday life.
Belonging also lives in the spaces between. An impromptu line dance that turns a room into a family reunion. The tender poetry of compliments exchanged in passing. A chorus of voices yelling a familiar line from a movie as if we rehearsed it all our lives. Even when the physical spaces are far apart, these moments quietly carry Black culture through the interactions that connect us.
Sometimes these moments appear in places I had not expected, reflecting the rhythm of Black culture moving through the city and the care that certain spaces hold.
Recently, I walked into a bookstore with a coffee bar tucked inside and felt anticipated. Black writers lined the shelves. Authors I love. Stories I recognize. Art that felt chosen with care. There were no Black faces inside, yet I felt at ease, as if the space itself had been curated with me in mind.
I felt considered.
It made me realize that belonging is not only about who is present. It is also about whether a space holds you before you arrive.
The bookstore sits closer to the center of the city.
I do not.
Many of us do not.
Affordability pulls us outward. Apartment complexes along I-35. Subdivisions in Pflugerville, Round Rock, or Manor. Neighborhoods further south or north where rent stretches a little farther. But the desire for connection pulls us inward. We live on the edges, yet we travel toward moments that make the city feel like home, tracing memories through streets and neighborhoods that were not designed with us in mind, even though we once occupied them anyway.
But I wonder what happens when the logistics of getting there start to overshadow the experience.
When affordability and jobs exist in one zip code and culture in another. When the spaces that embrace you are destinations instead of extensions of your daily life.
I cannot help but notice who lives close enough for belonging to feel effortless.
They say, “find your people.”
But they rarely mention the mileage.
Belonging often grows through repetition, and repetition is easier when spaces are close by. When proximity fades, community can feel occasional, and it is easy to confuse disconnection with personal failure. Building connections everywhere requires trade-offs, and everyone navigates them in some way. Still, proximity shapes experience in ways that are hard to ignore.
When Black residents are scattered by rising costs and shifting neighborhoods, gathering becomes intentional by necessity. It turns into something we plan for rather than stumble upon. There is beauty in that intentionality, but there is also fatigue.
Since moving to a different side of town and starting a new job, I have begun seeing things differently. I have discovered micro-communities I did not know existed and networks I did not have access to before. The city feels smaller in some ways and bigger in others.
Proximity is not just about whether I belong. It shapes how I belong.
What once felt far away or rare now appears more frequently. I enter those spaces differently now, curious and open.
The question is not whether I belong. It is what conditions allow belonging to exist: proximity, repetition, and ease.
In a city built without us in mind, Black culture still gathers in moments, in rooms that feel sacred for a few hours at a time. It is not quiet because it lacks volume. It is quiet because we are scattered.
Still, it gathers. It is shaped by distance, intention, and the care that makes even fleeting moments worth the extra mile.