I am not a social animal. Some of the best moments of my day are those I spend alone. When I was younger and single and living by myself I might spend an entire weekend without company. Now that I am the mother of young children, my moments of solitude are roughly equal to those times in which I’ve had the good sense to lock the bathroom door behind me. Fleeting but precious those moments are.

This is not to say that I am anti-social, or that there are not times when I crave social interaction. The more years I rack up as a mother, and the more time I spend with a preschooler as my constant companion, the more I realize the significance of carving out a social life. This was never more obvious than last year when we moved from Denver to Raleigh.

It was a blind move. We knew only a handful of people, were openly ignorant of southern mores and feared our children might be ostracized for their lack of familiarity with grits and sweet tea. I had no idea what to expect of our new neighbors whose children would no doubt be named for Confederate heroes. When they saw my last name in print or smelled the spaghetti sauce wafting from my kitchen on a Sunday afternoon, would the south rise again? Most importantly, in the bosom of the Bible belt, would our social drinking habits -- truly mild by Denver standards – cause our new neighbors to restrain their children when they saw ours coming?

As luck would have it, we moved to an area that is very popular with transplants. Ours is a rather large suburban development and in it I have met people from any one of a dozen states. While I considered this good news for my burgeoning outsider inferiority complex, I held my social aspirations close to the vest. What little free time we had in those first couple of months was spent in a hermit-like existence. We shrouded ourselves in family time and gave in to my seemingly insatiable need to explore our new surroundings. When friends visited from New York for a weekend, we hosted a dinner party that lasted for hours. When it came time to recycle the empty wine bottles, I submerged them in the bin under copies of the local newspaper for fear of some teetotaler reprisal.

It didn’t take me long to feel lonely. After years of weekly playgroup meetings, my body still felt the pull of the other mothers every Friday morning, even though they were a thousand miles away. While our children trashed the basement, the Moms were a floor above discussing the best practices for disciplining a toddler, the pros and cons of year round schools, and who would next be voted off American Idol. Such pressing issues continue to plague my very existence, but I had lost the network of trusted mothers with whom I could debate these and other matters of importance.

And then along came book club. Nearing the end of my hermetic tether, I answered an email about a new book club that was forming in the neighborhood. I had nothing to loose. I found the book, read it, and a few weeks later walked into a stranger’s house to be inundated with more names of more people I did not know. The women were beautifully coiffed, well appointed, and cordial. The host had put up a spread that looked like something created by a food stylist for the cover of Southern Living magazine. Maybe this was not such a good idea after all. My idea of female bonding time usually included a bowl of spicy Chex Mix.

But beside the splendid table was a shimmering bucket filled with wine bottles. Chilled whites, hearty reds, and even a single, ignored bottle of sparkling cider sat opened, inviting us to partake. “What can I get you?” the host asked, handing me a wine glass with a playful tag around the stem.

My shoulders relaxed. The protective shell in which I had made myself feel like a turtle began to dissolve.

The discussion of the book was thoughtful and lively. The food was delicious, and I would find out later, primarily store-bought. The wine flowed. I stopped at two glasses, not sure I could negotiate the cul-de-sacs and winding roads of my still unfamiliar housing development under the influence. With the book topics exhausted, the conversation shifted to homeowners insurance, pediatricians, and rumors of a Costco being built in a nearby shopping area. It was all I could do not to take notes.

Driving home that night – slowly, mindfully, happily – it occurred to me that Moms are Moms everywhere. We have the same immediate concerns whether we are in Carolina, Colorado or Cancun. They most often have to do with our family, our home and our sanity, usually in that order.

I was once again reminded that we are also our own greatest resource. What I learn in playgroups, and at book club, and in the Mommy and Me Happy Hours I have recently resumed hosting is far more valuable than anything I could learn in a parenting book or the local paper. This is not to say that the newspaper has lost its value. Indeed, it makes a fine bed on which to lay my precious wine bottles in the recycling bin each week.