Living Together

After the house was finished, the real work began. Chris, Sarah, Elijah and I moved in on April 30th. Our friends moved in on June 1st. Altogether, there were 4 adults, 2 teenagers, and 3 kids under 5 in the house--and two dogs and a cat.

One good thing was that both families had lived in community before. Our family had two previous attempts at living with other families. One went really well, and we remain friends with Gene Traver (and now his wife and son) to this day. One did not go so well, and that gave us some experience with setting boundaries and talking openly and honestly on a regular basis about what was happening in the house. Our housemates, Craig & Trish, had lived with a community of people before they had their 3 kids, and that was a challenging experience for them during which they learned about the importance of open communication as well.

So, from the time we got settled, we had weekly house meetings. These were really important, especially at the beginning, to provide a forum for planning our schedule for the upcoming week, talking about what had worked well for each of us, sharing things that were not working, and praying or singing or reading together as a household.

One major focus of the household is hospitality. We are strongly interested in having guests--for dinner, for special events, or to stay with us for short or long periods of time. Everyone in the household shared this vision, and we made it a point to invite others for dinner 2-3 times a week and host "open house" events 1-2 times a week (watching sports on TV, hosting lectures and concerts, reading aloud, and a weekly Compline service at 8pm on Saturday nights). Also, my daughter has a group of friends who live all over the Pioneer Valley, and she would often invite 2-15 kids over to watch movies, some who needed to spend the night because of the distance to their own homes. We also had some "regulars" who dropped in and knew they had an open invitation--Sarah's friend, Steve, Katherine, a friend and babysitter for Craig & Trish's kids, Julia, a friend of Craig & Trish, and Dave, a close friend of Craig & Chris. So, the scheduling part of the meeting was critical to be sure that everyone in the household knew who was coming on what nights, and what each person would cook or prepare for our guests.

The what's working part of the meeting involved talking about things we enjoyed about living in community. Each person would go around and tell about things that were important or meaningful during the week. I took notes at every meeting, and some of the things we shared over the year were things like: Good to get a chance to go to Maine together and expand our shared circle of friends, Good to have household guests and feel like hospitality is really happening regularly, Enjoyed watching a movie together, Good to work together in the yard--felt like we accomplished a lot, Love eating our meals together--great to have 10 and more at the dinner table and to talk together about our days, Good to see that the trash is getting taken out and I don't have to do it!

The what's not working part of the meeting was similar, except a bit harder. This was a time to share things that were difficult, or needed to be changed, or hurtful. Some things we shared were: Can't do Sunday night parties--too hard to get into the week, Too many people this week--chaos, clean up wasn't shared, Didn't expect to have to pay for vent cleaning--bad communication really caused stress, How to find a quiet, private space, Laundry not going well--wet stuff getting mildewed--how to avoid this and share one washer & dryer. The weekly issues were generally dealt with by brainstorming as a group about how to make changes, adjust schedules and share work in a way that was helpful. Our attitude was one of trying to find creative solutions that met everyone's needs. For example, Chris & Trish both enjoy cooking, and so they made most of the meals. After dinner, Craig & Trish had the responsibility of bathing their kids and getting them off to bed, so Chris and I and either Craig or Trish would clean up and the other would take care of the kids. This left the house in order by 7pm and gave all of us a chance to rest a bit in the evening.

There was also the underlying issue of ownership of the house. Craig & Trish were very motivated to own a home, but also wanted to have an opportunity to sell their home if they ever needed to re-locate. Chris and I owned the house we were all living in, and were very interested in establishing this as a permanent home for Elijah (and possibly Sarah if she chooses) to secure a future community for him without state funding--so selling or liquidating assets from the house was not an option for us. In the end, we had to do a seperate facilitated discussion about this issue to uncover all of the underlying concerns and try to brainstorm a solution to what seemed to be an impasse. We planned for several hours together, and Craig & Trish also took the results of this conversation to their own planning group made up of their close friends and supporters. In the end, it was clear that we would not be able to co-own this house and maintain the possibility of selling part of it in the future. So, after a year of living together, Craig & Trish found a house in a nearby town.

In the meantime, we have a new housemate who joined us during the year and brought many things to our community (including a baby grand piano, a lot of beautiful stained glass to adorn the windows, a fantastic library and new bookshelves that he build, and...the name for our house). More about how the community continues later.