Cohousing-L Mailing List: A Taste of Community <FWD>

[Fred H Olson WB0YQM (fholson]

E. Jay O'Connell   EJO [at] WORLD.STD.COM is the author of this message but
due to a listserv problem it was posted by the COHOUSING-L sysop.
Sorry Jay got bit by this on his first post ...


[I'm not a cohouser, I'm a lurker. Interested. These are my experiences 
of community...hope this makes sense to someone.]


At a writer's conference in Seattle, I had my first real experience with
intentional community--it was only for six weeks, and it was a 
self-destructing community, but it was fascinating, intense. I've been 
lurking here awhile. Thought I'd mention it, as it seemed sorta...relevant?

We did group meals about half the time we were there, sign-up, with money 
in a jar. The meals were great, I cooked a few. I got this great sense of 
an economy of scale going on...an efficiencey...you realize how stupid
isolated suburban one family to a box living is...

at the workshop, we were encouraged to post our skills on a board, and 
use each other as living libraries for story details. It worked. We had a 
lot of skills amongst the 20 of us. And a lot of ego--alas.

I found the closeness both intoxicating and relaxing. Something I'd 
always wanted, and something that at times I had to lock myself away 
from. We were in dorm rooms, sharing a floor, in class four or five hours 
a day, the rest of the time reading and writing and drinking and dancing 
and crying.

Clarion--the workshop--ended, but we're meeting up on-line to continue 
the process. There were a few marriages, divorces--I guess there always are.

Back at home, I've been running a writing workshop for a few years now. We
get together weekly, we read and write, and do some work as editors for
a SF magazine. The camaradarie is intense--the pain of rejection, the sharing
of information, the commonality of purpose, fascinating. I've never come 
this far in any pursuit--I've been alone in my garret as an artist 
forever...as soon as I had community, I began to have some success. We mentor
each other.

At the same time, I get this feeling of...agitation--that 'I need to 
leave home,' kind of feeling, that desire for isolation.

Strangely, membership in my community is contingent on writing. People 
who feel like they might like to stop writing face losing their entire 
social circle. In some senses we have built a prison for ourselves. It 
allows us to do what we want to do, but also restricts our movements.

My group is welded together to some degree by my personality--what the
polyamorians call the 'lynchpin'. I've tried to create structures that 
don't require me to lead the group--creating traditions in which each 
time a decision is made, the maker of the decision passes the task of 
deciding to another person. To a large degree, things run themselves. But
there are heartbreaking moments when Something must be done, and it falls
to me to do it--kicking out someone who became threatening, unstable. 
There is also an annoying hierarchy based on success in the marketplace. 
Annoying to me, even though I'm at the top of it.

Reading the list has been fascinating. I've wanted to go deeper into this
kind of thing, but my wife can barely stand the level of community I've 
currently developed. I was babysitting for a woman in the group, to give 
her some time to write, available for midnight co-counselin sessions for a 
borderline psychotic...well...it's all too close for her.

She *likes* one to a box. It wasn't something I really thought about when 
we got married.

I'd love to go to a boston area meeting...though I don't think my wife 
will enjoy it. Still, I'd like to see what it looks like a little bit closer.

Thanks for reading. Hope this wasn't too off topic.

E. Jay O'Connell--



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