The Gift of the Group

I'm realizing that there's another layer of motivation to doing this project than just reaching for the companionship and energy that collective living offers me. Even beyond the delight of space designing my house. There's a layer under that, that is starting to bubble up to the surface. Because at last it can.

If I think about it honestly, sharing my home means having to do less. Less of the obligatory and the responsible, and more that is quite personal. And that's a healthy thing! It gives me time to find what must come from deep inside me and act upon it. How often do we have the time these days to do that?

Years ago, my beloved hubby and I tried doing it all ourselves. We did the tree-hugging, "back-to-the-land" lifestyle on10 acres in Washington. We were by ourselves because no other family lived in the state, and because my husband didn't trust strangers to hold true as a family would. We also had two young children. Even in our early 30's it was an huge task to create that from scratch on raw acreage. And, it became an overwhelming amount of work to maintain; ask anyone trying their own version of radical homemaking or urban homesteading. It is one of the reasons I do not have my husband anymore. We were trying to be supermom and dad and super global citizens all at once. 

I will also tell you that living all those values as just a nuclear family was very lonely at times. Everyone was a car ride away. Think about it. If you are trying not to get into that car until you have multiple errands and places to go, and if you are trying not to waste resources and conserve, then you do not hop into a vehicle every time you just ached to rub shoulders with a friend who is miles away. Nurturing yourself kinda settles to the bottom of barrel.  

So now, have those old priorities lost importance? Just the reverse. Those values are all the more dear to me, but I'm seeking another path to them now. One not so burdensome, or lonely, so I can achieve it.

Dunno if I'm wiser now that I'm older, but at least I've learned. I've learned that relying on someone else's muscles is okay. I've learned that reaping the benefit of their fascinations, inclinations, and strengths, enriches me. And now I am also realizing that their presence gives me breathing space.

And precious time. 

Time to relax, and exhale or walk to see a friend...just because. And even more to the point, living this way gives me time to explore all sorts of interests, some they've stimulated as well as my own. The time lets me delve into all those passions I discover I want to improve. To deepen. 

So if I look honestly at my own motivations, there's a real desire to use the collective as a gift for my own pursuits. But see then here's the thing: Being who I am, and still reaching for those values now means I get to focus on what skills I want to bring into the way I live. To train in skills that are important, and intensify my expertise. And that allows me to become more resilient, a deeper resilience that grows from the explore and the pursuit. (At least in the ways that I can, being who I am right now.)

Altogether then, I'm seeing that collective living, the intentional community impulse is in total harmony with transitioning into local resilience, and the Transition Town movement. They are interwoven for me, one fabric. Intertwined, they allow me, and anyone seeking that part of themselves, to seek and exploit my own resilient strengths.  

So now, what do I choose to make of this gift?

A Gathering of the Feminine

I went to listen.

I wanted to hear the concerns and goals, and meet the people who took time out of their current living situations to talk about and consider living in a women centered collective.

We ranged in age from 30-60 something. We sat around a table in a relaxed commons kitchen in Oakland. And after a bit of ritual and appetizer tasting, we took turns speaking about what we each wanted from a place shared with others. Feelings that could lead to a vision statement for such a collective.

How did we each really want to live?

Phrases like developing relationships as a focus rather than commodity ownership were spoken. Honoring, both elders and others, and growing a culture of health. A love of warmth, sun and moisture. Wanting integrity and commitment that one can rely upon. A joy in movement, ritual, and music,.. and the smell of fresh earth. Time for meditation,  for family. Wanting the joy of doing together, and many hopes for extended family and layered circles of friendship. Being bodily comfortable. Simplified, meaningful living. A need for creativity as a part of everyday. I added talent sharing and asked for a stepping up to the bar with one's skills, but pairing that with a release to another's skilled lead.

And after all the wishes and ideals came up, Abigail spoke eloquently about the reality of community living. That what we meet over the initial months, and what we bring to the initial months is not all. Ultimately over time whatever we are personally working on will come to the table too, ours and everyone else's. The public personae will fall away, and that's as it should be. She knew that it was at that point that true relationship and deep connections happen.

For two hours, I sat amongst a group of women who for the majority had not met each other before. We never once needed to chit chat about favorite movies, or the weather. We started the conversation at a deep, yet comfortable place for us all. Real.

So why am I drawn to those who hunger for collective living, you ask?

Phase I: BEFORE - The Grand Toad

She is our house's namesake - Toadhall - our great room in the back. And the reason we bought this place.  

Let me set the scene: An expansive 42' x 23' room, mostly green plexiglass for walls. One pane has a smiley face scratched into it. Eleven foot high wooden ceilings with amazingly heavy support beams, a huge10' x 18' multiple-paned skylight in the middle.  
 
Where there are walls, they're covered with ugly brown exterior siding that matches the dark brown, cream and, yes, orange back porch you reach through double glass sliders from the kitchen. 

Ranch 99 Market

At some point this evening, TJ and I became aware that our housemates still weren't home well after 7:30pm. The summer light was still bright, and we weren't concerned, though we tend to keep an ear for Melissa, since she travels on buses from the other end of town. 

But finally they tumbled in the door at once and both were loaded down with cases of tropical fruit, greens and daikon. Seems they coordinated a shopping trip together to a great Asian produce market that I knew nothing about called Ranch 99.

 

Minutes later our new kitchen prep areas looked like this:

It also seems TJ and I are also invited to a planned group "diakon cake" making lesson that Stephen will lead.

 

Six weeks ago they didn't know each other.

Spring Cleaning

I organized a group clean today. Sunday.

I decided on a late morning 2 hours, figuring everyone could sleep in, and still have all afternoon to do as they wished. I tried hard not to overplan the task, but this morning I offered and even pushed a little to do it to music. It's a cover really. I have no experience or clarity about dividing up the tasks, and I'm trying to balance my push and organizing with the proverbial "spoon full of sugar."

While I coordinated our date and time last week, I suggested an ordered list to work top down. Then today I just suggested each person do a room. TJ said he'd do the kitchen, but when no one specifically wanted any other space, I assigned rooms. I provided multiple buckets and rags, spray bottles of our fresh smelling cleaner, and offered everyone rolls of paper towels. We were off.

I admit suggesting a task order satisfied my need to tell everyone what I wanted done. "Start by knocking down spiderwebs and ceiling dust." (That's something even my professional cleaners never consistently did. Granted, they were a cooperative of small Latina women, and while I loved how well they cleaned, the tops of my 6-foot bookshelves didn't get cleaned every time either.) So now, by giving everyone the direction to, "wipe all the bookshelves, including the tops, and picture frames", I was saying "I want you to be sure to do this." 

But I sounded nicer.

I don't have multiples of everything. We are sharing the ceiling duster, the window cleaner and two brooms, and that actually is a good thing. It keeps us interacting with each other, even as we work our own rooms. Like a wolf pack rubbing shoulders as they run."Oh, you're here. I feel that."

Two great things happened. Well, many things actually. My house is Spring clean and without saying so, we all decided to leave the curtains pulled back and the blinds pulled completely up so the sunlight fills the rooms.

And everyone found their own rhythm as their own style of cleaning took over. It worked well. They asked if they wanted direction, and I was aware of the different work patterns. Some were systematic. Others were not. Some stayed to their room. Others wandered beyond, and helped in the next room, or wandered outside finding another I'll-just-clean-this-too  task. Setting the two hours as cleaning time gave everyone a framework to keep going, and allowed enough deep cleaning by our five people of different cleaning levels to make a nice difference. We felt like we had a clean house. And we did it together.

For me, what was best beyond it happening really well together, was cleaning didn't overwhelm me. This is a big house. I don't do all I want to do because there's just too much. Today, I took the downstairs bathroom and the laundry room, and with only two rooms to focus on, I could really drill down and clean them. I wiped the washer and dryer inside and out, and was able to wash the filter and scrub away the grunge that builds up in the curved corners of the metal lids and agitator that no one has time to worry about. I did that for my housemates who use someone else's appliances. And I did it for me.

We have Phase II construction starting in 3 weeks, and all this pretty clean will get messed up. Hell, the stove got splattered during dinner tonight. But then we will come together again in June to clean away the dust and grime of our new place. Together. It was the best cleaning day I've every had!

 

Pistachio Green

Today Melissa told me that my color is pistachio.

It was a compliment.

The Gift

While we sat at dinner last night I heard the vacuum cleaner turn on upstairs. 

Being Sunday, I assumed it was TJ’s son doing his weekly chores in his room. You know, the quick electric broom sweep around anything that's fallen on his bedroom floor. But it went on too long. Then the to and fro motor sounds told me the landing was being cleaned, methodically. Definitely not Raj. 

Melissa? She offered to do it  a few weeks ago when we asked for a dusting in anticipation of a new housemate’s arrival. But we hadn’t asked today at all. (In fact, I was planning on coordinating a group cleaning day one Sunday mid-April to see how that felt and get us all into the habit of sharing the task.  ‘Fraid it’s too many years a mom, and project manager.)

As I cleared the table, the clunk of the heavy machine was being worked down the treads. Twenty minutes later, Stephen carried the vacuum back to the laundry room. 

“Wow, Stephen, what a gift! Thanks for doing the stairs and landing.”

So here’s the thing: He shrugged in a surprised way as if to say, “Huh? Well, as long as I was vacuuming my suite…yeah, of course. No biggie.”

I tried to explain that living in this household with just our own kids meant cleaning was a “learn-to-maintain-yourself-if-you-ever-want-to-be-independent” lesson. Always. It was perpetual parental push (or a give-in and just get it done) exercise. And it was the norm for so long that I was totally surprised by Stephen's choice to do more. What was needed in the moment. 

There was this emotional rush through me…   “Yeah, this is what it feels like to live with other adults in my house. Even ones who are my kids’ peers. People who have lived on their own for even a bit take possession of and pride in their space. And yes I may be more welcoming than some other owners, but I tell you, we’ve lucked out!

I sent them both a thank you email this morning to return the emotional rush, ...just a little.

"Loni and the Oxalis Jungle"

Melissa came home from work today while we were already munching on dinner sandwiches of bacon, avocado and tomato. The hello’s led to talk of the small but persistent oxalis weeds overtaking our yard with our recent attempt at a veggie garden. 

“Oh, you mean like NausicaA and the toxic jungle.”

I laughed. “Yes, exactly!”   

I’d not thought of that image before.

For those of you unfamiliar with this wonderful anime movie, she was referring to “NausicaA and the Valley of the Wind” by gifted director and artist, Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli.

NausicaA and her people live in one rare, safe valley in an earthly world of the future. Gigantic plants are overtaking the planet's human habitats everywhere, and the flora produce toxic spores that force the humans to wear masks to protect themselves. Life is a battle to survive the toxic jungle, as it is called, but it is heroine NausicaA, the young princess, who discovers the secret.

It has been just two months, and Melissa, TJ, and I already have a common language of some breadth - poetry, classical music, favorite Asian Anime, cooking. It is more than a common shorthand, an in-house twitter. We actually deepen our understanding using shared metaphors. And yes, we are 30 years apart in age. 

It felt nice to have that bridge.

Phase I Two Housemates and Us

Stephen, our second housemate moved in two days ago over the weekend. 

He left for his first day of work on Monday, and was gone fairly early this morning.

We were moving around the kitchen a bit later this morning, making our assorted breakfasts and TJ turned to me,

” It feels strangely empty to have everyone gone from the house.”

“Hmm you mean, now they everyone has gone to work?”

“It feels a little too quiet.”

Yes!

Showing My Baby Part II

It’s cool! It’s working. 

I’ve created the “place” and ways to have privacy and also happily rub shoulders when they want. TJ keeps standing in front of the chimney and new upper cabinet, saying, “ This is just what it should look like. I keep forgetting it hasn’t always been here.” 

As we show the place to potential housemates,they smile as they walk through the house. Some have actually expressed that they can feel how I’m aware of their needs. (And our own, too actually, but they don’t know see that as much.) Places are “sweet,"  and special to them- like the little laundry room. And the upper deck that they can sit in even when it rains. “Oooh, can I do a veggie garden in pots up here?!” she asks. “Yes, it’s wonderfully sunny and veggies will love it up here.” I reply. 

They’re putting themselves into it.

The laundry room has an ironing board and folding area, and we hung a clothes rack right over the heating vent for "air drying." 

My Choices

Our baby’s on the market.

and not at all surprisingly, all my initial fears that she won’t be good enough have resurfaced. 

My ideas, my reworks. 

Will I succeed in attracting the people who share my attitudes? 

Is it the right story?  

I’ve toured the rooms,  and while my head knows they’re looking at it from their needs, I’m feeling emotional about it.

Do they see us?

I am the perfect Crash Test Dummy, Part 1

I’m TJ. And while I happen to be Loni’s partner in life, it turns out I’m also the perfect crash test dummy for this project. So I’ll be sharing my experiences as an active passenger, as we go from plans to remodeling to adding housemates.

I started calling myself the crash test dummy when we first were seriously considering this project. Why?

Because, compared to most other people I’ve known, I have a very high need for physical and personal privacy. Due in part to how I grew up—large family, no private spaces, no respect for boundaries, my father’s profession requiring me to be a public person and under social scrutiny all the time. And in part due to my nature—I’m an introvert in most circumstances, and an empath who more often feels drained rather than energized being around other people. And I’m also a musician with sensitive hearing whose sleep is disturbed by noises.

My de facto solution has been to have as much private physical space around me as possible. Whenever possible as an adult, I’ve had a bedroom to myself as a creative studio and personal lair. When there was no bedroom available, I improvised: to escape living in a triple dorm room in college I moved myself down into the furnace room of the off-campus house. When I lived in the Hopi village of Lower Moenkopi, Arizona, I moved into the unheated upper floor of a stone barn to have space to myself. We were only eighty miles from the Grand Canyon, so at night it was colder than Hades. And I’m not joking. But it was a respite from the constant social flow in the main building of the old Mennonite mission.

(You could also say that by moving onto the reservation, and down inside a desert wash, I was trying to put as much private physical space around me as possible. Once you left the lower village, if you didn’t go up to Tuba City, you could drive your car or ride your horse for hours and not see buildings or other people. When my Hopi friend Lyle was still alive, he would sometimes loan me a horse, and I would ride all day by myself, soaking up the solitude and feeling my way through the seemingly endless desert .)

So, our thinking goes that if Loni, with input from me, can do space planning that adds two or three new people to our existing house AND gives me enough experience of privacy to be comfortable-- well, you’ve got some good crash test results.

Stuff

I’d never considered the assorted furnishings and things I have come to own as an advantage. ‘Til now.

I’ve lost lots of dear people very early in life, starting with both my folks by 28, so I’ve “acquired” things of mixed quality, that either have sentimental value, emotional burden or the responsibility of a “legacy for my kids” attached to them. I’ve always dreamed of a simple place where I actually chose my own furnishings and decor. Mmmm!

However, now that I’m looking at the idea of sharing things with others, I’m seeing value in an assortment of tastes, an eclectic mix. Beyond begin responsible and reusing, it’s fun to offer different sized and styled mugs. There’s playfulness and a welcome in saying- “Pick what you like.” 

I also am coming to realize that I won’t be too upset if things are broken. In my group home, I can let go and relax about stuff to enjoy the company. I can more easily loosen my grip on possessions. And that’s a value I treasure more than my treasures. So now I can pass along the hand-me-downs to fresh eyes and minds that won’t burden the items with history or baggage. Who will just enjoy the choosing process, the sharing, and the aesthetic of the piece. 

Now these things can enrich. Whoda thought?

A Different Lens

The goal of my house make-over is not a beautiful design. 

Sure, I want to tell the right story somehow and make it attractive. But it’s just so clear that the point of my design work is two-fold: to be as miserly as I can with the dollars I've allotted to the project, and to make sure that the flow and use of the house is really transformed to comfortably hold and respect multiple residents’ individual needs. That brings a different eye to the task of interior architecture. It's space planning pure and simple, one that I dearly love. It’s the human element of dwelling design. 

Yes, I adore choosing palettes and finishes that tell that story.  But in this project, that's icing.

My success happens when the room works for groups of individuals that all want to make a meal, whether they want to eat together or not….

A Former Resident's View of Toadhall

My 27-year-old daughter came for a visit last week, and I got fresh eyes about my house. She’s lived in several apartments, and has also shared houses with owners in San Francisco, London and New York.

She helped us winnow down what we "must do" to make it worthy, while also helping us see beyond all the beaten up, poorly done, "needs work" things I can't not see anymore.

She reminded me that she’d always loved this bedraggled, imperfect house, and everything that she loved about it is still here- the gorgeous light through the rooms, a mix of big celebratory spaces (where we even added a disco ball!), and small niches that I’d helped the family create to give us each our own bit of privacy. The neighborhood is terrific, historic, great character, safe with all sorts of hip and funky and fine places you can walk to, plus it’s an easy trip to “The City” she loves.

These are all things our housemates will crave. If the group spaces are welcoming, and there are small details in the intimate corners for ease and privacy (that's my job), plus access to so much in the area around us, then we have real amenities to offer.

And So It Begins

So here she is: We call her Toadhall, our 1908 Victorian.

I’m excited!

Because the house doesn't flow well for the way we live, I’ve sorta pushed and shoved furniture around to use our rooms differently since we bought her 15 years ago. I've also wanted to try sharing house resources for a long while too. Years ago, I was part of what was called Conserver Society thinking and the times being what they are now has made the idea seem more, well....imperative.

Now, circumstances are making it possible to take the steps right here in my house: First, I’m starting up my own business again as a residential space planner, and second, my life partner TJ, a very private, amazing man, has realized he too wants the feel of other folk moving and using our house, even as he still needs real private space. Even from me. So that’s my space planning challenge. He’ll be my crash test dummy. If I can make him feel okay, and stay excited by this, I’ve succeeded.

And you’ll see his posts here too, to let you know how I’m doing….

Yes, I'm a little scared too. I want this to work! I do believe that we can enjoy our home's spaces in new ways that are beyond nuclear family. I explored Co-Housing and other intentional community collectives when my hubby was alive. But he was 6'9" and felt inhibited by the small units.

But I miss people. I am my most productive in a collaborative design and business environment. And when I'm doing my own internal, creative in work, I love the feeling that just beyond there's a lovely flow of human laughter and energy. And working at home has all but erased both, so I should be thrilled. 

I am.

But honestly, I’ve been in my own home with just family for years and as much as I want it, I admit that I’m also used to having everything in my house my way. I want to feel enriched and expanded, not invaded. So I’m a crash test dummy too.

But what I believe living this way could feel like is so powerful for me, that I just must try. What's most important is that I’ll design the spaces to flow for group as well as solo comforts and privacy, not just squeeze a group into it. Intend it.

See what you think. Welcome along for the ride!