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https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/01/my-big-move-communal-living-australia-melbourne>
"Some time ago I was a single mum living in a sharehouse in Melbourne’s inner
north. While not an ideal housing scenario, I couldn’t afford to live alone,
and I didn’t want to. Single parenting is isolating and about as far from “it
takes a village” as it gets. But what is the ideal way to raise a kid? And
where are the utopian communes of the 70s now?
Through the hippy grapevine, I heard whispers of a cohousing community seeking
new members. To clarify, cohousing is a model of intentional community with
independent dwellings and shared living spaces, managed collaboratively by the
occupants. In other words, a commune – but with more structure and, fingers
crossed, fewer wind chimes.
This particular community was open to low-income earners. And I didn’t need to
move to Nimbin, Copenhagen or even out of my city to find this utopia. It was
being built a few suburbs away. If cohousing was good enough for dreamy Danes,
it was good enough for me.
My application magnified my most idealistic self. I bragged of an endearing,
slightly unusual skillset: milking goats, making sauerkraut; a saint-like
patience when making decisions by consensus. When I was selected to join I
bawled my eyes out. After moving 11 times in less than 10 years of parenting,
it would be a stable place to call home.
Initially, while our newly formed community waited for our units to be built,
we would meet for bring-a-plate communal dinners and share our collectivist
dreams. It was a honeymoon period – all giddy with oxytocin and a smorgasbord
of desserts. We were in love with our untarnished ideas of a shared life. What
did it matter that I didn’t digest lentils all that well? What came out the
other end was a problem for another day.
When we eventually moved in, it was a bleak building site with no heart, so we
rolled up our sleeves and got stuck in. We held working bees, planted gardens
and adorned common spaces with op-shop finds. Kids played dress-ups or
Dungeons and Dragons while adults relaxed with a wine. So much of what I had
hoped for was real."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
