Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Through the Looking Glass 8

[Denise Meier &/or Michael Jacob (dmmj]

Patty Mara wrote:

> I'm also waiting to hear from Two Acre Wood-folk as they move into their new
> homes,

Two Acre Wood report:

About half the 14 households have moved as of today. As one of the last who will
move in, I find that my initial excitement when the first family moved in has
become a bit closer to envy, as i watch household after household take up
residence on this piece of land which has occupied so much of my psychic and
physical energy over the last 3 years..

Last night we had an impromptu potluck dinner in the woods; the food was great,
the kids were running around on the plaza together, different adults playing 
with
them in shifts; the long late-afternoon light made the new landscaping and the
really beautiful architecture look even better...and I felt really happy, 
getting
a very good reminder of why we put so much effort and angst and money into 
making
this happen.

There are many, many things still to sort out with the builder and the City, but
i'm too weary of all of them to write much about it all. Perhaps later. One
interesting thing that happened is this: all along we had planned to do "sweat
equity" on the landscaping and install it ourselves. So recently the landscape
committee emailed a notice that each adult needed to put in 4 days of work over
the next 5 weekends. My immediate response was "Are you kidding!!!! I'm so busy
as it is, plus I have to get ready to move, plus I'm putting in all this extra
time dealing with the financial aspects of closing the sales - this is all I
need!!!"  Well, it turned out to be EXACTLY what I needed...time spent working
together with my friends, with no complex decisions to be made, no controversy 
to
hash out, work that accomplishes something concrete and that makes the place 
look
beautiful. I realized that we have had only 2 work days in the last three years!
Contrast that to hundreds of hours of meetings - no wonder our dynamics have
gotten out of balance.

So that's a brief report. Hope to be able to report from my new house soon.

Denise Meier
Two Acre Wood
Sebastopol, CA