Cohousing-L Mailing List: Landscape dreams

[John Greene, Nancy Lowe (greenelowe]

        Here at Lake Claire Cohousing in Atlanta, we certainly can relate
to what Brian Setzler writes about incomplete projects after move in.
We've been in for 2 years now, and are just now seeing the completion of
several projects.  Our site was a mud hole for a long time, and much of it
is still covered with wood chips and gravel.  When we first moved in we
were still in go-go, hurry-up mode.  Everything had been on an emergency
basis for a couple of years, with the needle always in the red, so to
speak, and it took us a while -- several months I'd say -- to calm down and
realize that from now on things would be happening more slowly.  We're a
small group (only 12 households), and we're all, as Rob Sandelin wrote
recently, working hard elsewhere to pay our mortgages and such, so there's
just not that much time and energy to go around.  But I think once we got
over the impatience (and the attendant combination of guilt and
finger-pointing), the slower pace was actually kind of nice, at least
compared to the anxiety of the development and building phase.

        And now, suddenly, in the last 3 or 4 months, several large
projects that always seemed way off in the distance have actually begun
falling into place.  A big drainage problem got fixed, some fences have
gone up, our common house courtyard is taking shape and looking beautiful,
some stone walls are being built for our vegetable garden, and soon we
might actually have signs up at all the entrances identifying who we are.
Why all this has happened so fast so recently I don't know, but it moves me
to tell Brian and others that you should just take a deep breath, keep the
faith, work out your group processes, and be patient.  Your group's
cumulative energy and creativity will get things done over time -- probably
not quickly or efficiently -- but eventually.  And the upside is that
because you're pooling your money and talents, you end up surrounded by
beautiful stuff that you could probably never have afforded or created on
your own.  I mean, I look around every day -- at the fountains, courtyards,
stone walls and so forth -- and know that we'd never have this kind of
setting if we were in single family housing.

        Ironically, the only nice feature we had at the beginning -- a
pretty little patch of grass that everyone played and picniced on -- is
looking dead and terrible now -- just when everything else is starting to
look great.  So now fixing that goes on the to-do list, and by the time we
get that done, who knows what else will have come up?  Such is life.  But
the fact is, the same is true when you're in a house by yourself -- the
never-ending, revolving to-do list -- except that you don't have a whole
group of people helping you to deal with it.

        So the bad news is -- it'll *never* all be done.  But the good news
is -- a lot of beautiful things will get created as you go along, and
you'll get used to the slower pace, and the strengths of the group working
together can outweigh the slowness of the process.  Just remember, as  time
goes on, to celebrate what you've already completed and not just to focus
on the still unrealized dreams.


John Greene
Lake Claire Cohousing
Atlanta

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