I'm just coming off of two weeks building a small cabin on land I bought with my son last year. We've got about 37 acres, mostly woods, and we're hoping over the course of time to build out a small community there with a common house for shared kitchen and full bathroom by the pond at the top of the driveway, and then small cabins sprinkled through the woods for bedrooms/privacy.
Speaking for myself, I want community but also need solitude, which sharing land in this way offers a means for balancing. More so than sharing a pre-existing house. The hard part, of course, is building out all that infrastructure, especially when none of us are rolling in cash. It means doing the work ourselves and having to ask for a lot of help, which would be easier if we were *already* living in community, but is harder when we're all still living separately. In the course of the building, I had to remind myself that it was not unlike when my kids were looking for their first jobs, but no one wanted to hire them without job experience. A Catch-22, that. I'm working towards building out a community within a reality that is not yet communal, and it's hard. I have to remind myself over and over that it's a systemic disconnect and not my personal failing for not (yet) having a perfect communal network to slot into place.
I could not have lived with my parents in adulthood. But at present I have one adult child permanently living with us, one with us for summer until he heads of in Fall to a teaching job in Chicago, and the third living six blocks from me, whose child is here part of six days a week. In fact I will deliver all his lunch sandwiches for the rest of the week momentarily.
So it is the most traditional kind of community, I guess. Extended family. We are intertwined.
I have always been interested in cohousing, but my own family is about as much as I can extend to continuously.
My husband grew up in a very close neighborhood, which we would have loved to do, but it isn't what we found.
I would love this book! I’m in walking distance of much of my husband’s family- there are 5 houses within a 1 block radius though his brothers moved less than 30 minutes away. My parents are 10 minutes away and sister is 40 minutes away, I see almost everyone on a weekly basis. I like that we have our own house where I can retreat but I love being near everyone. My in-laws bought our house for their 3 sons when my husband had been back living with them for a year after college. Across the street was just enough distance for them to feel like they weren’t being constantly monitored. His grandparents still lived on the street too until their deaths.
I'm just coming off of two weeks building a small cabin on land I bought with my son last year. We've got about 37 acres, mostly woods, and we're hoping over the course of time to build out a small community there with a common house for shared kitchen and full bathroom by the pond at the top of the driveway, and then small cabins sprinkled through the woods for bedrooms/privacy.
Speaking for myself, I want community but also need solitude, which sharing land in this way offers a means for balancing. More so than sharing a pre-existing house. The hard part, of course, is building out all that infrastructure, especially when none of us are rolling in cash. It means doing the work ourselves and having to ask for a lot of help, which would be easier if we were *already* living in community, but is harder when we're all still living separately. In the course of the building, I had to remind myself that it was not unlike when my kids were looking for their first jobs, but no one wanted to hire them without job experience. A Catch-22, that. I'm working towards building out a community within a reality that is not yet communal, and it's hard. I have to remind myself over and over that it's a systemic disconnect and not my personal failing for not (yet) having a perfect communal network to slot into place.
Here's how the build went, if you're curious:
https://ashasanaker.substack.com/p/work-in-progress
https://substack.com/@ashasanaker/note/c-292758791
Love this for you all! How cool! Thanks for sharing. And yes, mix between solitude and interdependence is the holy grail.
I could not have lived with my parents in adulthood. But at present I have one adult child permanently living with us, one with us for summer until he heads of in Fall to a teaching job in Chicago, and the third living six blocks from me, whose child is here part of six days a week. In fact I will deliver all his lunch sandwiches for the rest of the week momentarily.
So it is the most traditional kind of community, I guess. Extended family. We are intertwined.
I have always been interested in cohousing, but my own family is about as much as I can extend to continuously.
My husband grew up in a very close neighborhood, which we would have loved to do, but it isn't what we found.
I am happy, though, with the home-hub.
I would love this book! I’m in walking distance of much of my husband’s family- there are 5 houses within a 1 block radius though his brothers moved less than 30 minutes away. My parents are 10 minutes away and sister is 40 minutes away, I see almost everyone on a weekly basis. I like that we have our own house where I can retreat but I love being near everyone. My in-laws bought our house for their 3 sons when my husband had been back living with them for a year after college. Across the street was just enough distance for them to feel like they weren’t being constantly monitored. His grandparents still lived on the street too until their deaths.
Thank you so much for including this, Courtney, and for championing this book in every way!
And thank you for the title of "creative living catalyst" which I suddenly have the urge to add to my website hahha