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| From urban gardening, |
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| small business owner, |
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| bike-powered transport |
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| and music-playing.... |
after a couple of weeks of consideration and pondering, we've decided to re-apply for membership at twin oaks and if accepted, return in a year or so. wow! why? well, for the past 2 years we've been dreaming and planning with our compadres roberto and marta (currently residing at twin oaks) on creating or finding a new community. keenan asked me how ours would be different than twin oaks; a dicey question since its still so much in the unresolved-dreamstate. but, i told him: there will be a strong inward focus (personal growth, healthy inter-personal dynamics) and a strong outward focus (interacting w/impacting the world or as many people as possible). "great!" he said. "twin oaks is neither of those. and we certainly need more communities."
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| back to the land of hippies?!?!?! |
the decision feels right and good in many ways. it gives sky some more focussed family time while willow is still young (he'll be 10 on Validation Day), it gives Hawina and I a better container for continuing to heal our connection, it gives the 4 of us (me sky roberto marta) lots of closeness and access to work and plan, it puts us in close contact w/lots of people interested in community. and knowledgeable about it. it facilitates the re-uniting of the vulgar bulgars (currently we are travelling from cville and richmond to practice at twin oaks. the cites are on opposite sides of the oaks). it frees us up from "survival" mode of earning enough to pay rent etc.
and i think we've done a spectacular job in tackling cville. we've created 2 successful collective businesses, we've made lots of great friends, participated in myriad interesting projects, made it work financially w/o getting jobs we hate (a continual miracle to me). we live in an awesome collective house that feels like home. so why leave? at the root, in these 3 years, despite our many efforts, we still haven't found the people that have the energy and will to create the kind of community that we want. cville has an intensely transient feel. folks get into their projects for however long, but there's rarely a sense of putting down roots, of being here for the long haul. ironically, the 2 people i know here that really HAVE decided to put down roots have extenuating circumstances that prevent them from being able to create a living/working/playing community with us.
so there it is. happy to hear your thoughts/reflections/feedback..........
