The Most Radical Act of My Life
Compared to people who walk from their home country to find a place in a new country, or compared to anyone who has ever left family and home to start over (etc), this was nowhere near a radical act. But, compared to other things that I have done in my life, helping to create an intentional community in Northern Virginia was the most radical act of my life. I hasten to say that I didn't do this myself, it was a major "we" effort.
I don't want to tell the story of how we did it, it was 20+ years ago, and it is certainly not just my story to tell. What I want to think about here is why it was a radical act and what came of it.
First of all, a few disclaimers: this was not SO radical. This community, Blueberry Hill, is perched in the middle of the high end suburbs and we live high end suburban lives. We drive cars, we have our own families and private homes. We are allowed to participate fully in the consumer-driven world that we inhabit. We have made no choices which separate us from everyone else.
We did not set out to do anything but create a community of close neighbors. In some ways, we picked the low-hanging fruit when we chose this path. We have not asked anything more of ourselves than to be in community.
Okay, so what is radical then? To me, it is radical to choose to create something intentional with people you may not even like or love. To choose to work with a group that does not have a process for excluding people, only a process for trying to educate them about what they are getting into. In 19 years of living here, we have come up with some functional ways to make decisions together, we have learned that it is easy and imperative to support each other in difficult times, and we have found what our personal boundaries are -- what we can and cannot tolerate.
When I am feeling really poetic or big thinky about this, I say: we are developing the skills and knowledge to create a world of peace. If everyone had the opportunity to live in even this low-expectation kind of a community, where our commitment is to neighborliness above all, everyone would have so many more ways to deal with conflict and difference -- AND everyone would find out how nourishing and heartwarming it is to belong to a group that has that vision.
Last night I rolled off the couch to go to dinner at the Common House. Jon was still in Loudoun getting stuff done, Rebecca and her friend were at my mom's house for dinner. Instead of getting up and finding some good leftovers in the fridge, I put on my jacket and my shoes and walked the 100 yards to a warm, delicious Mardi Gras dinner. I walked in and was greeted disproportionately (because of my status as a recovering patient), filled my plate with a wonderful salad, got a bowl of gumbo, some rice and red beans and went to find a place at a table. There was room for me at a table with Elliot (15 months old) and his parents and brother (age 4), my lifelong friend Betsy and her husband and a couple that lives right next door that I don't see much but I love it when they come to dinner. This is a perfectly normal dinner at Blueberry Hill. The conversation was lively and thank goodness it wasn't very much about me.
I did not help clean up, although in normal circumstances I would have helped. There are no official rules about how we clean up, we are all just expected to get it done. We decided long ago that we are adults and we all chose to live here and we don't need to make or enforce a lot of rules. If we don't want to do something, then we won't do it because there is no community energy around it. But we do like to eat together, so our systems are based on a belief in willing participation. We have a common understanding of what clean-enough is, and it is a higher expectation than some of us live with in our own houses, and lower than others. It is clean enough for us to feel comfortable.
It has not been completely simple, figuring out what our common expectations are. We struggle with mundane topics all the time. Recently there has been a lot of talk about parking. This sounds easy to fix but it is not. Who decides what is fair? (We make our decisions by consensus.) Who has needs that are greater than others? How can we accommodate that? These are questions that are answered by home owners associations everywhere, but our answers come from conversations with each other. We could go and get somebody else's rules, but that doesn't meet our needs.
There are people in the neighborhood who have not fit in easily. This is hard. But we don't have a choice, we have to find ways to make things work even if we don't have an underlying affinity for each other. This is actually what I mean when I say we are learning to create peace. Peace isn't about having no conflict. Peace isn't about quiet. Peace is about living in a place that has figured out how to meet the needs of the whole community. Peace is not perfection but it is about health and love and caring and working to be better.
I believe that there are ways to get where we got without actually building a lot of houses. But in some ways this was an easier path than other options. If a person who lived in Reston, say, wanted to create community with her neighbors, she would need to start having some meetings to find out what others thought of it. She would probably not find that everyone on her block or cul de sac was up for this project. Her group would be a bit geographically dispersed. This is not hopeless but it isn't quite the same as having everyone in close proximity on board. It has its limits. But I still think it would be absolutely worth it for every person in Reston (for example) to be invited to consider what it would be like to participate in an intentional community. It could be potlucks and shared child care. It could be shared elder care. There are so many ways for people to be helpful to each other, and to get to know each other.
One of the inconveniences of living at Blueberry Hill is that we don't have our own garages. But this is also one of the beauties. Because we cannot ever drive into a garage, close the door, get out of our car and walk directly into our house, we are forced to be out in the neighborhood for at least that amount of time. So we can see our elderly neighbor Victor working to unload his groceries and we can offer to help. We know every dog well. We know what people's pajamas look like because many of us go and retrieve the newspaper without putting on our real clothes. We have unplanned, brief social moments with each other. Over the years, we have gotten to know each other very well. Meetings, meals, work days, celebrations, funerals, parties. You can't help it, you learn how to dance with each other.
Anyway, the choice to build this place may be the most important choice of our lives. And we have made some very important choices, all of us, that have nothing to do with cohousing. Most of us cannot imagine living any other way.
I don't want to tell the story of how we did it, it was 20+ years ago, and it is certainly not just my story to tell. What I want to think about here is why it was a radical act and what came of it.
First of all, a few disclaimers: this was not SO radical. This community, Blueberry Hill, is perched in the middle of the high end suburbs and we live high end suburban lives. We drive cars, we have our own families and private homes. We are allowed to participate fully in the consumer-driven world that we inhabit. We have made no choices which separate us from everyone else.
We did not set out to do anything but create a community of close neighbors. In some ways, we picked the low-hanging fruit when we chose this path. We have not asked anything more of ourselves than to be in community.
Okay, so what is radical then? To me, it is radical to choose to create something intentional with people you may not even like or love. To choose to work with a group that does not have a process for excluding people, only a process for trying to educate them about what they are getting into. In 19 years of living here, we have come up with some functional ways to make decisions together, we have learned that it is easy and imperative to support each other in difficult times, and we have found what our personal boundaries are -- what we can and cannot tolerate.
When I am feeling really poetic or big thinky about this, I say: we are developing the skills and knowledge to create a world of peace. If everyone had the opportunity to live in even this low-expectation kind of a community, where our commitment is to neighborliness above all, everyone would have so many more ways to deal with conflict and difference -- AND everyone would find out how nourishing and heartwarming it is to belong to a group that has that vision.
Last night I rolled off the couch to go to dinner at the Common House. Jon was still in Loudoun getting stuff done, Rebecca and her friend were at my mom's house for dinner. Instead of getting up and finding some good leftovers in the fridge, I put on my jacket and my shoes and walked the 100 yards to a warm, delicious Mardi Gras dinner. I walked in and was greeted disproportionately (because of my status as a recovering patient), filled my plate with a wonderful salad, got a bowl of gumbo, some rice and red beans and went to find a place at a table. There was room for me at a table with Elliot (15 months old) and his parents and brother (age 4), my lifelong friend Betsy and her husband and a couple that lives right next door that I don't see much but I love it when they come to dinner. This is a perfectly normal dinner at Blueberry Hill. The conversation was lively and thank goodness it wasn't very much about me.
I did not help clean up, although in normal circumstances I would have helped. There are no official rules about how we clean up, we are all just expected to get it done. We decided long ago that we are adults and we all chose to live here and we don't need to make or enforce a lot of rules. If we don't want to do something, then we won't do it because there is no community energy around it. But we do like to eat together, so our systems are based on a belief in willing participation. We have a common understanding of what clean-enough is, and it is a higher expectation than some of us live with in our own houses, and lower than others. It is clean enough for us to feel comfortable.
It has not been completely simple, figuring out what our common expectations are. We struggle with mundane topics all the time. Recently there has been a lot of talk about parking. This sounds easy to fix but it is not. Who decides what is fair? (We make our decisions by consensus.) Who has needs that are greater than others? How can we accommodate that? These are questions that are answered by home owners associations everywhere, but our answers come from conversations with each other. We could go and get somebody else's rules, but that doesn't meet our needs.
There are people in the neighborhood who have not fit in easily. This is hard. But we don't have a choice, we have to find ways to make things work even if we don't have an underlying affinity for each other. This is actually what I mean when I say we are learning to create peace. Peace isn't about having no conflict. Peace isn't about quiet. Peace is about living in a place that has figured out how to meet the needs of the whole community. Peace is not perfection but it is about health and love and caring and working to be better.
I believe that there are ways to get where we got without actually building a lot of houses. But in some ways this was an easier path than other options. If a person who lived in Reston, say, wanted to create community with her neighbors, she would need to start having some meetings to find out what others thought of it. She would probably not find that everyone on her block or cul de sac was up for this project. Her group would be a bit geographically dispersed. This is not hopeless but it isn't quite the same as having everyone in close proximity on board. It has its limits. But I still think it would be absolutely worth it for every person in Reston (for example) to be invited to consider what it would be like to participate in an intentional community. It could be potlucks and shared child care. It could be shared elder care. There are so many ways for people to be helpful to each other, and to get to know each other.
One of the inconveniences of living at Blueberry Hill is that we don't have our own garages. But this is also one of the beauties. Because we cannot ever drive into a garage, close the door, get out of our car and walk directly into our house, we are forced to be out in the neighborhood for at least that amount of time. So we can see our elderly neighbor Victor working to unload his groceries and we can offer to help. We know every dog well. We know what people's pajamas look like because many of us go and retrieve the newspaper without putting on our real clothes. We have unplanned, brief social moments with each other. Over the years, we have gotten to know each other very well. Meetings, meals, work days, celebrations, funerals, parties. You can't help it, you learn how to dance with each other.
Anyway, the choice to build this place may be the most important choice of our lives. And we have made some very important choices, all of us, that have nothing to do with cohousing. Most of us cannot imagine living any other way.
I can’t imagine living any other way!
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