Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Coho v intentional community/close relationships

[Judy (BAXTER%EPIHUB]

(Loren Davidson) recently wrote (feb 6): 

<<And I believe that if I'm going to spend 3-5 years planning a development with
people and perhaps the rest of my life living with them, I'm going to want to
develop strong friendships and bonds of trust with many of them, to the extent
that we *will" trust one another enough at some point to share ownership of
some items like washing machines, yard tools and even automobiles, to share
child care responsibilities and possibly home schooling, to be living around
people we can actually *rely* on.  At that point, IMO, regardless of what you
call it, you have community and you have something that I believe will make
life easier to deal with in many ways.>>

I'd like to make a point about close relationships.  They take time.  And I
don't want to "enclave" myself into relating only to people in my cohousing
group.  Development HAS tended to keep me from spending much time with my
friends outside of the group - but someday, God willing, that will end. And
after 3 years in MoCoCo, two of which are in residence of phase 1, i count 4 
or 5 close (or I hope will be close) friends, within the group, all of whom I
get much less time with than I would like.  (only 3 are residents, by the way).
I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THAT MANY CLOSE FRIENDS.  And I DON't expect to be close
to everyone in the group - or equally willing to extend myself for them if they
have troubles, whatever sort.   So I guess I'm saying that maybe we don't have
to have close relationships including calling people on their "stuff" with
everyone - in fact, if we want other lives outside the community, I'm not sure
we can.  I've said this before, and Rob sort of said it-there are different
expectations in different kinds of communities.  I *know* our group can improve
our process in lots of ways, and we have various limits, including the skills
of the group, time , and money, to do that.  And we have developed a lot of
trust. 

Gotta work - this list is too prolific.

judy

Judy Baxter, Monterey Cohousing Community, (MoCoCo)
Twin Cities Area, Minneapolis/St.Paul Minnesota
e-mail: baxter [at] epivax.epi.umn.edu

other mail:     2925 Monterey Ave So,  St. Louis Park, MN 55416
Twin Cities CoHousing Network Voice Mail  612-930-7580
 Voice Mail for Monterey Cohousing - 612-930-7554