The light will be coming up soon; I sit rocking, the steam rising off my coffee, its aroma rich and comforting. Probably 4:30. The birds are not stirring yet nor a breeze. Utter quiet on this summer morning, my favorite hour when darkness becomes light. This is the hour I meditate, not formally, but the hour I bless the earth and the people I love and the people of the earth I try to love. I contemplate peace and pet my cat. I sit in gratitude as the wonder of a new day materializes in the growing light. The birds begin singing their joy in a new day. Morning has arrived.

This is my week to clean the Common room. I gather my laundry, check my grandson asleep in the loft, and cross the still commons to the big house where my son and his wife sleep in the guestroom. The hobby room shelves are filled with works in progress; I peek as I fill the washer. So many creative mediums - great energy.  The next hour I sweep, dust and polish furniture, fluff pillows, make the windows sparkle. I appreciate how my neighbors return glasses to kitchen and magazines to the rack.

Flowers!  The cutting garden is full. Passing through the children's playroom, art lines the walls and block buildings the floor. I pick extra flowers for the tables at dinner tonight. I see a neighbor walking a dog in the field and my grandson running towards the common house. Children never walk. Hurrying to meet him I put the flowers in the laundry sink and catch up with him in the dining room. A bowl of cereal, talking with his mouth full about plans for the day - branch shelters that he and Joey and Nicholas may camp out in that they are constructing in the area under the tall trees we cleared as a play area.  The boulders are good seats and long rope swings hang from the tall trees - strong enough for adults as well as children to swing in large dizzying circles. Washing the bowl, treasuring the quiet moment before the interactions of the day.

This has been a busy week at work and today I do bills, clean my house, weed the front yard which is a greenery, flowers, and boulders, mow my tiny patch of lawn at the back with our old fashioned quiet rotary mower. I look forward to these tasks in my pretty little house. The community has a short meeting before dinner to present a proposal on how we might better organize planning and making meals. This is not to be consensed on, but to seed our minds so that we might talk casually among ourselves this week in preparing for a decision at the meeting next Sunday.

My son and his wife are passing through on their way to revisit their favorite spots from their college days, looking like college kids again. This place works its magic very quickly. Breakfast and they are gone. The day goes in the same way. Friends stopping to chat while I weed. Laughter and whoops drifting down from the woods mixed with strains of music.

Evening comes, we sit on the porch sharing a beer with family and friends.  My grandson straggles in to clean up for dinner - glowing. I remember how great it is to spend a day in the woods.  I still do that from time to time.
 

Tables are filling when we reach the common house. I reserved one for my family since this is their last night. I love the way neighbors consciously choose not to eat with the same people every night, but make sure to share a meal with everyone over the course of the month.  Food is scrumptious as usual. I love a meal I don't have to cook.  Work is over for everyone except the clean-up crew. Cooks try to clean as they go so there is not a big mess at the end, basically dish and pan washing, and sweeping. But tonight the tables are folded up and put in the storage room and the chairs taken to the edges of the room. Tonight we dance!

People are drifting off to the deck, or to take a walk, or gab in the common room. A band of local musicians arrive laughing, setting up, cutting up. Tonight a local caller is leading a contra dance. A community building kind of dance: sort of a cross between the Virginia Reel and the Minuet whose roots are in English and French country dancing. Partners stand opposite each other in a line and the caller walks everyone through the dance before we begin each dance, teaching us.  The dance begins and the caller calls the moves and everyone dances with everyone else at some time during every dance. There is music from dulcimer, guitar, mandolin, bass. There is lots of spinning and sweating and laughing. And the most important part is everyone smiles and looks into each person's eyes with whom they dance. Children are dancing and Annie is swung off the floor with the swings. Other people from outside the community have joined us. Some come just to listen to the music and chat. Eleven o'clock and the band play the traditional waltz to end the evening and there is much praise and clapping for the caller and the band. Goodbyes are said and a great day comes to an end.

GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE COMMUNITIES
A fractured fairy tale about housing choices
- Vicki Knox

Once upon a time there was a sweet little blonde named Goldilocks who was lost in the great wide world and looking for a home to call her own.   After a time of wandering she found herself in Floyd County, as so many intelligent, adventurous, environmentally-conscious girls do, and met some like-minded people who were interested in living in community.  She soon moved into a commune, where she enjoyed the many potlucks, spontaneous gatherings, and good-hearted friendships.  She was no longer lonely, but sometimes she longed for a bit more privacy & a shorter commute to work. And with her middle class, American-suburban upbringing, she somehow could not bring herself to think of her current lifestyle as anything more than a happy interlude.

About this time the settlement check from her attorney (for stress & trauma from that horrid night with the three bears) came through and she decided to buy herself a cozy little suburban home in town where she could work on a degree and have access to more career opportunities.

She loved being a homeowner and, being a smart blonde, understood the benefits of home equity.  She also loved the privacy & space of living alone, but missed the camaraderie of her Floydian days.  She grew tired of eating dinner all by herself night after night.  She wanted something in-between that could satisfy her need for privacy and self-determination as well as her very human need to be part of a close-knit community.  Then one day she saw the cohousing poster at the library.

She decided to come to the weekly meetings at a local coffee shop.  At first she was afraid she was the only new person there, but she soon realized that there were some very new members, as well as some founding members, present.  Everyone was friendly and she was glad to realize that she had many friends in common due to the diversity of the membership. She joined a committee, and though not yet living in community, she enjoyed the camaraderie of working on it together.  Though not a parent herself, she found she really enjoyed being around the children in the group.  What a deal, she thought, to be able to enjoy their sweet smiles and be a part of their lives yet never have to change a diaper! Likewise, she could enjoy playing with Brillig (that delightful little cohousing dog who has never done a disgusting thing in his life) yet not be tied down by dog ownership.

The story has not yet come to an end, but Goldilocks is expecting to live happily ever after in cohousing, and you could too!

Next tale : The Three Little Pigs And Their Little Cohousing Houses.