The Joys
and
Struggles
of
Community
Living
by
Patty
Mara
Gourley
 |
In the summer of 1998, when my family of four moved from Halcyon to Tierra Nueva Cohousing in Oceano, we acquired an extended community family of 50 adults and 25 children. The ages of my neighbors range from newborns to elders in their nineties. All these new relationships have added an intergenerational richness to our lives, and have also created some unique opportunities for personal growth. In truth, it’s been hard work. Angeles Arrien describes relationship work as "the toughest spiritual path on the planet." The joys and struggles of community living are all about relationships: ongoing, cyclical, often in need of tune-ups and repair. We’re learning a little about one another every day, sometimes backsliding, sometimes making headway against the old patterns of withholding and harboring resentments. Each of us brings our gifts and our shortcomings to the mix.
As one of the first of 27 households to move in, I experienced both the anticipation of living in a dream come true, and the realization that building houses doesn’t build community. Fortunately, some of us had a great deal of practice working together for nearly 10 years to get all these houses dreamed, designed, approved, engineered, financed, marketed and then finally built. We learned through the years to listen to one another, to celebrate each victory and grieve each setback together. We were reminded by our mentors Kay and Floyd Tift to balance the difficult work with socials, camping trips and play. We developed consensus decision-making skills and crafted business meetings that were both efficient and entertaining.
In 1998 when our vision became reality, the core group of families had more than doubled. Each new household, be it a retired couple, a single senior or a family with young children, had to learn our shared history and the skills we had been honing for years. At the time of the first move-ins, some of my new neighbors were very new acquaintances, arriving from across the state or the country. Some had acquired experience in group decision-making from other developing cohousing groups, but many had no such experience before coming to Tierra Nueva.
Our first year was filled with both exhilaration and exhaustion from the stresses of moving and adjusting to the new culture of community life. We were faced with a growing list of community tasks like installing new landscaping, organizing community meals, and cleaning the common house and grounds. We slowly became aware of each others’ differences in parenting styles, privacy needs, yard maintenance (or not), and degrees of participation. Some folks seemed almost invisible, attending few meetings, participating marginally in the group activities, while younger families became more easily integrated in community life as their children made friends and created bonds with one another.
Some of the parents closely supervised their toddlers and young children. Other parents were more comfortable letting their young ones explore the community on their own. Additional differences began to emerge. Some community members needed to be included in all the social activities and felt snubbed when smaller informal gatherings occurred which didn’t include everyone. The tough work of relationships had begun.
By the end of that first year we determined that the biweekly business meetings were not suitable for discussing interpersonal issues. A few of us suggested to the group that a new kind of meeting be created to explore community living topics in a safe environment. These community life meetings are held roughly every other month on a weekend morning. Childcare is provided and everyone is encouraged to attend. A typical meeting starts with a circle dance which Kay and Floyd Tift brought to us from the Findhorn community in Scotland. The early gatherings had "getting to know you" games and exercises for becoming acquainted. We currently use a game called "Ting" to bring up anonymous topics for discussion, then use an "Open Space" format to further explore topics of interest. Our most recent community life circle included airing conflicts and misunderstandings among neighbors, sharing appreciations/disappointments and addressing special needs of households who are experiencing physical or emotional difficulties.
Last Autumn, we threw an anniversary party to celebrate one year of living at Tierra Nueva, called "Telling Our Story". We created skits and comedy routines to act out the ten-year saga of our early years, the design and development, construction and move-in. This year for our second anniversary we’re planning another party, hoping to engage everyone again in some form, perhaps a talent show or a games day, with an ice cream social and a campout on the village green. These gatherings are the "glue" which binds us together by creating shared memories of fun and fellowship.
One of my favorite memories from last winter was a small play that five of us performed to celebrate Winter Solstice. I adapted a play called "The Sun is Reborn," by Starhawk, from her book Circle Round. I asked one our elders, Ken Helfant, to be Grandfather Sun, and a four-year-old, Riley Foster Evans, to be the Newborn Sun. A community friend, Silvia Alcon, played Mother Night, and I narrated. We practiced once or twice, threw together some costumes and presented our play around a winter campfire circle for everyone who showed up, about 30 of us. It was a magical event, with Riley stealing the show as he emerged mysteriously from Mother Night’s cape and strutted around in the firelight, glittering in his golden costume. Then we all lit candles one by one and made a simple wish for the new year ahead. I hope to reenact this simple story every year, adding new characters as we grow, creating new memories. This is what makes my heart sing about community living, the chance to celebrate the turning of the year with simple ceremonies of the heart.
In addition to sharing fun and fellowship we’ve also experienced grief together. One of our older members died suddenly of a heart attack while climbing the hill to visit her home under construction. We remember Marya every year on the anniversary of her passing. Last year we each made prayer flags on bright fabric squares. We gathered together, lit candles and shared the gifts of her wisdom and humor. This year on her second anniversary, I sewed all the prayer flags on a long streamer and festooned the trees of our Serenity Garden as a colorful tribute to her memory. This garden was designed and created by a small group of community members, most of them over 60 years old. It involved months of heavy labor, moving tons of rocks to form retaining walls and pathways, planting and watering bushes and flowers. Remembering Marya in this glorious meditation garden has given me a place for my grieving, in silence surrounded by beauty.
Another community member has been recently diagnosed with liver cancer. Bringing meals, caring for her cats and visiting with her has woven our lives together in a new way. Recently many of us walked over to her house, bringing a birthday cake, to sing to her and let her know we love her. Her clarity and courage in the face of her illness has been a blessing to us all.
Sharing grief helps the healing. When Kit’s beloved standard poodle, Abby died, we gathered in her home and shared our stories about Abby and other animal friends. We looked at puppy pictures and admired Kit’s miniature clay sculpture of her dog, enthroned on a tiny purple couch. This simple sharing was so appreciated by Kit, that she remarked at the next business meeting "Now I know why I joined this community."
This morning, I experienced one of the boons of community life. For many years I have wanted to learn how to preserve fruit and vegetables. I remember my mother canning fruit during the hot days of summer in Fresno and wish I had asked her to teach me her secrets before Alzeimer’s Disease stole her memory. This morning, my neighbor Carl walked me through the steps of canning plums, fresh picked from trees planted by his father decades ago in Santa Maria. After two hours we put up 42 gleaming Mason jars of the ruby fruit in our common house kitchen. And I preserved a memory of my mother and my childhood, guided by Carl, passing on his father’s kitchen magic.
When we attempted as a group to write a statement of community principles as a guideline for community living, it took months of discussion and rewriting. Now that the document has been consensed by the group, it remains a daily challenge to walk our talk on the most difficult spiritual path on the planet, Relationships. We hope to remember to balance the hard work with laughter as we weave our memories, plant and harvest our gardens, celebrate together the turning of the seasons.
Patty Mara Gourley has lived on the central coast for twenty years with her husband Bruce and two children, Lauren and Alex. She lives in the Tierra Nueva Cohousing community and most every day rides her bike to her pottery studio in Halcyon.