Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Is cohousing a consumer product?

[Kathleen Lowry (kathleenlowrylpcclmft]

Yes I agree Bonnie, but an awful lot of people don’t put most of their energy 
into relationships of any kind. Is there a way to screen? Kathleen

> On Mar 12, 2023, at 1:36 PM, Bonnie Fergusson via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l 
> [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
> 
>    Cultivating relationships needs to be the primary focus, a willingness to 
> work for the Community and a willingness to put the Community good ahead of 
> your personal preferences.  The last is the one most Americans find alien to 
> our individualist culture.  Patience with the decision making process is also 
> a stumbling block for many.  Consensus decision making is slower than voting 
> but often throws up better decisions than were first proposed, eventually.😏 
> Sharing life with your neighbors is what it’s all about in the long 
> run.Bonnie FergussonSwans Market CohousingOakland, CA
> 
> 
> Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPad
> 
> 
> On Sunday, March 12, 2023, 10:09 AM, Kathleen Lowry <kathleenlowrylpcclmft 
> [at] gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> My first foray into cohousing didn’t work because I was unclear about my real 
> priorities. I bought a lot in a beautiful area surrounded by woods on a hill 
> with a view of the Smokies.
> At the time I wasn’t clear that my priorities were 1. Community with some 
> closeness and sense of spirituality 2. Natural beauty 3. Architecturally, 
> small and beautiful. When I bought the lot, that’s how it felt.
> It turned  out, I misinterpreted what I saw when I first saw the community. 
> Newcomers built big houses reflecting  little interest in architectural 
> beauty or living small,
> there was no community structure (or governance) and the primary common 
> interest was organic farming and chickens. That was was fine, but not me. 
> 
> I could have certainly traded some of what I care about for other things I 
> have a passion for, like a community interest in music, or educational 
> volunteering, or a few other passions of mine. That’s how I find friends in 
> my regular life- but I for some reason didn’t think of that when it came to 
> looking for community. Duh. 
> 
> 
> 
>> On Mar 11, 2023, at 2:23 PM, Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l 
>> [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Wonderful thread on the ability/inability to find a place in cohousing. It 
>> brings to mind two experiences and one conclusion:
>> 
>> 1. When I went to my first cohousing conference I was surprised at how many 
>> people were there not to learn how to form a community but how to find one. 
>> I was only meeting people who were shopping. And they were shopping far and 
>> wide.
>> 
>> 2. When I much later tried to build a forum for people who were committed to 
>> and needed a cohousing community in which the units cost $100,000 or less, 
>> it didn’t work. The major reason was that no cluster of people formed that 
>> wanted to work on forming a specific community in a specific place. No 
>> commitment to a solution specific enough to materialize it.
>> 
>> Cohousing communities are created; they aren’t found. 
>> 
>> Your perfect community can’t exist until you are in it.
>> 
>> Sharon
>> —————
>> Sharon Villines, Washington DC
>> 
>> We don’t agonize, we organize. — Nancy Pelosi
>> 
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