Cohousing-L Mailing List: More on: why I love cohousing

[Joani Blank (joani]

 Friends,

We've had some very unfortunate and painful interactions in this 
community during the last few weeks. Then today, the following email 
was sent by my neighbor, Bonnie to the rest of us, and it 
brought  grateful tears to my eyes:  (Yes, I have Bonnie's permission 
to post this.)

>     I want to let you all know how wonderful I think this community 
> is.  I've experienced a lot of different communities over the 
> years, political activists, quaker meetings, academic communities, 
> communal households, extended families, my own and my in-laws and 
> I've never been happier than I have in this one.  This is a great 
> place to live and I love my neighbors. It's just the right mix of 
> privacy and community for me.

>      We have a lovely mix of talents and skills and enough 
> diversity to keep it interesting.  We have a multi-year history of 
> learning how to work it out and live together in relative 
> harmony.  We allow each other our separate and disparate passions 
> without demanding absolute uniformity.  And for the most part we 
> are able to respect our differences.  We're there for each other in 
> emergencies great and small and share many disparate interests in 
> smaller groups as well as delicious meals and cute pets.  And we 
> continue to work on ways to live more lightly on the planet and be 
> more energy efficient.

>      I am very thankful that we were able to move in here and 
> expect to enjoy the challanges of growing ever older with you all.

>      Love and kisses,
             Bonnie [Fergusson]


I feel much better now than I did before reading this, and hope these 
words will speak to others of you who may be having a hard time with 
an ongoing conflict, or an acute flare-up in your cohousing community.

Joani Blank
Swan's Market Cohousing
Oakland, CA
>

land line : 510-834-7399 (preferred)
cell: 510-387-1315
joani [at] swansway.com

P Save Trees ...please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to.