Skin in the game

Money is messy business.

We Shedders are sometimes asked how we manage our joint finances, by people who astutely recognise the complexity of the issues.  How do we deal with the differing opinions, beliefs and idiosyncrasies of six people about money, when navigating those waters with even one partner can be a challenge?

Take my husband Rick, for example. I have 34 years of practice dealing with him, but I’m still surprised about how he can be so willing to invest in computer gear. Rick on the other hand raises his eyebrows at my readiness to spend on a nifty little shirt. So given these innate differences, he and I’ve developed a few policies. For example, either of us can spend up to $100 without reporting in. Beyond that, we consult with one another, either before or after the fact (sometimes getting forgiveness is more fun than getting permission).

Allow me to swing for a moment to the other end of a long spectrum. Consider the relationship I have with my government, where I have very little direct influence (compared to what I have with Rick). I pay my taxes and have practically no connection to how that money is spent. If a pothole is fixed on our street, I notice. If a new missile is developed for use in Afghanistan, I don’t. I’m pretty isolated from all that messy business.

Closer to home, I spent a lively evening recently with a good friend who lives in a Gold Coast condo, dining with three of her close friends who are co-residents and are on the committee that manages the hundred or more units in the complex. They were pulling their hair out because people don’t show up for the body corporate meetings where proposals and decisions are made – and then afterward are willing enough to complain about the results. They pressed Rick and me with “how do you deal with…” type questions, as if there were something to learn from our small but relatively happy Shedders community. It was an impassioned conversation.

You could say that those no-show residents just don’t care, or feel they don’t have influence – but I think it’s more that they don’t want to get their hands dirty. For example, they don’t want to have to grumble face-to-face about their sinking funds being spent on improvements to someone else’s block of units. They’d rather be removed from the messy business of the money.

Here in our Shedders community, we don’t give ourselves that option. We have monthly meetings, and the rule is, we’re all there. Otherwise, the meeting gets rescheduled. We know that every decision affects every one of us in some way.

Let me illustrate.

We had one of our regular meetings yesterday, and as usual a number of financial issues came up.

First of all, we reviewed the financial report. We have a joint bank account, into which each of us puts a monthly sum. The bank balance ebbs and flows, and gives us (a) funds to spend, and (b) a brake on how much we can buy.

Then we revisited the renovation to our Shed guest quarters and yoga studio. We have different priorities and different views, but over the previous weeks we’ve aligned and are now on the same page, as they say. The builder arrives before long and when he leaves, we’ll have a new rain catchment system, a front portico, sheltered windows and better access. We’re all happy about that.

Next item on the agenda was about acquiring a small trailer to tow behind our ride-on mower. It’s not a big expense and we could all see value in it. I envisioned filling the trailer with mulch and cruising around on the little tractor rather than pushing heavy wheelbarrows. Daniel could see bringing wood up from the lower part of the property. We agreed that when the bank account climbs into surplus again, we’ll likely buy it.

Easy.

Then we hit some new territory. We’ve recently had a huge painting that hangs in the stairwell tumble off the wall from great height, damaging its frame during the journey. Judy, the painting’s owner, explained that it had cost $500 to repair, and wondered if the amount could be reimbursed by the Shed account.

For the first time in the living history of this group, there was a long silence – not a negative or judgemental one, I would assert, but profoundly reflective. I tried to tease out my own thoughts which wandered along something like this:

• Hmmm. That’s a fair bit of money.
• Worth talking about.
• But it’s not my painting.
• And I haven’t had much choice about it getting fixed.
• But if it were my painting, what would I think is fair?
• And where on earth are the lines between private and group ownership in this case?
• Any chance we have a policy or a precedent we can lean upon?

I reflected on the sociocracy principle that good decision-making depends on being able to separate out your personal agenda from what’s good for the group. So I reviewed the above list and mentally labelled my thoughts accordingly.

When we finally launched into discussion, we had a frank conversation about our own reactions AND an open exploration about how we want incidents like this to work in our community. Like all of us, Judy was clearly looking beyond her own vested interest, to the good of the group. We recognised that it won’t be the last time that something like this happens; that it would be useful to have some guidelines; that no amount of guidelines will cover every tricky situation that comes up. We worked through it, but not without some discomfort.

You can see why people wouldn’t show up for body corporate meetings at my friend’s condo. It’s messy business.

But ask any midwife – or gardener, or educator, for that matter – and I’ll bet they’ll tell you: messy business is the best kind. The rawness, the intimacy that comes from those moments is the fuel for a luxuriant life.

Meantime, the painting will be back up on the wall soon – repair paid for out of Shed funds. Although the painting isn’t mine, and isn’t one I might have chosen myself, I’m missing its bright colours, its quirkiness, and the vibrant way it lives on our wall.

You see, I’ve now got some skin in the game – and that makes all the difference.

Tending the friendship garden

One morning many years ago, while I was running a demanding business and my children were in their teens, I crossed a bridge.

It was actually the Roseville Bridge, in Sydney, and I was in the passenger seat while Rick drove us to work on a sunny spring morning. From my vantage point, I could see a little café near the river, where two small specks sat at a waterside table. My imagination provided the details: they were good friends, sharing a morning coffee, laughing, crying, swapping stories about husbands and kids and holidays. They had the morning sun on their faces and nothing to do in that moment but enjoy each other’s company.

I on the other hand was sitting in heavy traffic with a clipboard on my knee, planning a presentation to a large corporate client later in the week. I faced a day with back-to-back meetings that wouldn’t end until 5:30 or so, when I would commute home to make dinner, try to unwind, and spend some time with the kids.

A wave of heartache washed over me. When was the last time I sat at a waterside café and had a long cup of coffee with a close girlfriend; no agenda, just the simple relishing of another’s company?

I would have said I had hundreds of friends, including staff at work, clients and colleagues in the field of learning and development. But in that moment, as we navigated the heavy traffic on the Roseville Bridge, something else occurred to me: I had NO friends.

So I took a pledge. I was going to find some.

In my mind I called them coffee friends. It was a metaphor for people I did not pay, who did not pay me, who wouldn’t be helping me to make money. They would be people I could just…hang out with.

For the rest of the trip to the city, I pondered this question: How do you make that kind of a friend?

That afternoon, I rang a woman I liked and asked her if she’d be happy to have coffee sometime this week. She was delighted; one thing led to another and within a few weeks she was a true coffee friend. Many years later, she’s still one.

I tell this story because I believe in structures. At that crucial crossing, I decided to structure my life so that coffee friendships could occur. I have many coffee friends in my life these days, and they’re there because I set up structures that would have that happen.

Our Shedders community is an example of that. To begin with, they are friends, so I have someone with whom to have coffee (or do many other things) anywhere, anytime. Just as important, they have friends whom I get to know and sometimes love. In turn, they adopt friends of mine, and everybody’s lives get richer.

I have other structures: I make sure I am participating in clubs. I’ve developed a couple of good friendships in the Old Bar Garden Club. I have several very good friends in our community choir, in our book club, in my yoga classes and in our boat club.

Or how about this for a world-class structure? – move your favourite people nearby. We have close friends in Sydney that we took property-hunting in the area for years until they finally surrendered and bought 40 acres right here on Mitchells Island. Lucky, or what?

I do-indeed-no-doubt-about-it have friends.

* * *

The Intimates are coming this weekend.

We are a small group who did a seminar called “Intimacy” many years ago. Six of us were in a sub-group within the seminar (pods, I think they were called), and ours was particularly successful. We enjoyed the experience so much that after the seminar was over, we set up fortnightly get-togethers where we continued sharing our challenges and accepting coaching from one another. Suffice it to say, we made a big difference in each other’s lives.

When Rick and I moved four hours away, to the country, The Intimates were only one part of a community of friends that we were concerned about leaving behind. Would we ever see them again? Could we keep up friendships long distance?

We all made an effort. We often meet over breakfast in the city when Rick and I are in town, and a year ago we invited everyone to Mitchells Island for a weekend. That was such a success that we resolved to do it again.

So the Intimates are coming this afternoon, and I expect they will make a big contribution to what I’m up to in life. Here’s our agenda:

• highlights and challenges of the year
• current challenges
• bucket list
• how my life is using me these days

Not to mention:

• breakfast at the Waterbird (complete with the quiz)
• beach walks and exploration
• dinner out and dinner in
• and coffee, coffee, coffee anytime.

How could it not be an impactful weekend? Our friendships will pick up where they left off, we will have a good time, and we will yet again cherish one another’s gifts.

So, out of these stories, here are two things I observe about friendship:
1. Friends are everywhere, but you have to want them. You have to attend to them, invite them, and set up structures so they are present in your life.
2. Your friends will follow you anywhere, if only you invite them.

As with the best gardens, we must keep finding the new and looking after the old.

One of our Shedders’ gardens

Melting pot – or not?

Last Saturday morning nine of us gathered at the Waterbird Café in Manning Point. It’s a weekend ritual that involves breakfast at Mitchells Island’s finest, outside on the deck which hangs over the Manning River, watching the light dance on the river and spotting waterbirds and the occasional dolphin. As well, we do the Good Weekend quiz from the Sydney Morning Herald, a tradition that extends back decades. These were all good friends, people I love to be around, and I looked forward to some great conversation – as well as acing the quiz.

Sometimes only Rick and I are there on a Saturday morning at the Waterbird, flailing away at a quiz that rewards youth culture, pop music background, and an understanding of Aussie sports. But on this occasion, with nine good brains in attendance, I figured that we had a good chance of triumphing.

And then I noticed a potential problem. There was a certain similarity among members of the group. It dawned on me that there wasn’t a soul under 60 or much over 70, not a patch of dark skin or the strong accent indicating a faraway birth. If sheer numbers and a bit of brainpower were the rule, we’d do okay. But for the top bands of the ‘90s or a question of Asian culture, no amount of grey hair was going to help our score.

Bottom line, we were a homogeneous group with homogeneous interests. Though we were likely to have a very good time together, we might not have such a good chance at the quiz after all.

That observation tapped into a question I’ve been thinking about lately, after encountering several articles on the subject: how important is diversity in setting up a cohousing community?

Should you aim for it – or aim against it? Does it even matter? (Here’s a sample, titled Retirees Choose Intergenerational Cohousing.)

I grabbed this image off a website about diversity – clichéd, perhaps, but it makes a point. The arms are different sexes, different races and different ages, which is what diversity means as a technical term in modern-day parlance.

I get the point. In encouraging diversity, you encourage tolerance – of age, sex and culture. You bypass ageism, sexism and racism. You create a strong structure.

Perhaps there’s nothing more important, if one is interested in world peace and fortifying the heart of the planet.

My life has altered over the last five years. In the workplace, I had colleagues from India, China, the Middle East. I worked closely with people who were just out of school, grandfathers, single people, married people, single mums, gays. I walked the streets and travelled on the train in a racial melting pot; people everywhere talked on their mobile phones in languages I couldn’t even identify.

There’s no doubt it was good for me. In brushing against the cross-section of age, race and sex, I was learning tolerance at a deep level. Molecules of concern about our differences were being eroded with every contact.

My life now has a different texture. If you took a photo of our Shedder arms, they’d be similarly wrinkled and similar in colour. We range in age from 63 to 70, are heterosexual and have European-heritage backgrounds.

I’m reminded of the over-55’s retirement village in Arizona where my mum and dad went for the winter. I visited them there a couple of times, once with my 14-year old daughter Jenn. The park rules were clear: children for a maximum of one week; teenagers must be accompanied by an adult; no children in the pools. Jenn wasn’t impressed. But on the other hand, my parents and the other residents loved it there, among people like themselves. Their age and race tolerance wasn’t tested.

A few weeks ago a good friend of mind, a colleague from work days, came to visit, with her twelve-year-old daughter. Those of you with grandchildren won’t be surprised that I found myself playing rummy and learning a new board game, planning meals for a picky eater, and having to stop and think about whether everyone in the party would enjoy a long car ride or a chatty dinner out. Don’t get me wrong: I loved every minute. But it required a new dimension of creativity – and tolerance. My age and race tolerance is rarely tested these days either. In my experience, that’s the norm in communities where retirees live. There is rarely the excited screech of children, the thrum of a teenager’s first car, the twang of an Indian dotara, the smell of Thai cooking in the air.

And just maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe at 60+, we’ve earned a bit of complacency. Our teenaged children, raging in a bath of complex hormones, have left home and our own hormones have finally settled. We are acquiring stoicism as we deal with deteriorating bodies; close friends our own age have died; we are learning to live with our own mortality.

Of course, diversity is never completely lacking. We have teenaged boys next door (remember the triplets?). There are two big dogs from across the street who like to cavort on our lawns. We get visits from offspring in their twenties and thirties. There are two grandchildren (“the twins”) and several gorgeous grand-nieces and nephews. We sing African songs in our choir. We travel and in doing so rub shoulders with other cultures. Perhaps at this time in our lives, that’s enough.

Diversity? Or uniformity?

Challenge? Or easy harmony?

Which is best for the good of the planet? Closer to home, which is best for you as you plan your retirement years and perhaps your cohousing community?

I’d love to hear your views on this dilemma, and any conclusions you’ve reached.

By the way, the Waterbird breakfast crew was sufficiently diverse to score 17 out of 20 on the quiz, an all-time high. And we saw dolphins.

What does that mean?

“I do”

I’ve told a number of stories through Shedders and in the course of this blog about how we regulate ourselves and how decisions get made here in Shedder-land. We carved out our own path, through much discussion. So you can imagine how startled I was to stumble upon a system of self-governance that seems to have pipped us at the post by almost two hundred years.

Sociocracy, it’s called. I learned about it from Meg, a Sydney friend who is intent on establishing a co-housing community and is exceptionally well-read on anything to do with communal living. My first reaction to the word was the same scepticism I bring to any reference to “ocracies” – autocracy, democracy, meritocracy, plutocracy, not to mention rogue-ocracies like monarchies and dictatorships. But by the time I had finished reading Meg’s material about sociocracy (plus exhaustive Wikipedia coverage), I was rapt.

Although the term sociocracy has a long and respectable history, I can’t remember having encountered it (or its pioneers, including Auguste Compte in 1851, Lester Frank Ward in 1881, Kees Boeke in mid-1900s). However, its core principles are air-I-breathe familiar. I have applied them to family life and to my teams in business. And here in the Shedders community we operate by them.

For the purpose of a small group like ours, I could sum up the action as follows:

1. Much discussion about issues
2. Arrival at consensus.

Many years ago, as the Shedders began looking at properties, we had a long conversation about how decisions would be made. Well, we said, important decisions, like what property we buy and what kind of a house we design for ourselves, must be agreed to by everyone. Anyone could have the power of veto.

We contemplated “majority rules”. Would there ever be a situation where we would just take a vote and slam down the gavel?

Rick trained us in “straw polls”, which means that at any point during a discussion, you can take a quick vote to give an indication of whether people are anywhere near consensus. A straw poll vote can make someone’s point of view visible, or open up a new avenue of discussion.

But, we agreed, voting doesn’t work for arriving at a decision. You and I have often experienced being out-voted on something. Myself, I don’t like it, and sometimes find it hard to be generous afterward. I might find myself colluding with someone else who was voted down; the words “I told you so” are close at hand. There’s a completely different atmosphere when a group has stayed with an issue long enough to arrive at consensus.

I’m not especially patient. Once I’ve figured something out, I want it to happen right now. It’s not easy to sit on my hands while talk-talk-talk goes on and people get their heads around the issues and likely consequences. It’s also not easy to allow myself to absorb somebody else’s ideas and see that it might be smart to abandon a position I’ve held strongly.

But I know from a thousand occasions that talk-talk-talk works. Something magical happens when we take time to really see an issue through. It’s been the core of our Shedder successes (and the core of our failures when we neglect it).

There was a time when some of us wanted hundreds of acres for our communal property and others wanted a no-hassle little plot; when some of us wanted to be deep in the hills and others on the ocean; when some of us wanted custom-built and others to adapt something that already existed. Big differences. But after hours and hours and hours of discussion, of being willing to listen, of being willing to talk when we felt our idea wasn’t going to be popular, we somehow arrived at this particular house in this particular location with this particular ambiance.

All the other ideas, positions, notions went away somewhere – they just dissolved as we flowed toward decisions that worked for this thing that was larger than the sum of us. Over and over I was awed to find us in agreement about something that had seemed impossible at one time. As the other’s values, reasons and longings became transparent to me, I could let go of my own small point of view.

Sociocracy makes this key point: there might be a decision that you like, that feels right for you, but you have to be able to step back and look at what is right for the group. The group is something else, something more than you. That takes a lot of letting go.

After all the talk comes consent.

Here’s an example of what I mean: If you’ve been reading Shedders, you’ll know that I’ve had a long struggle coming to terms with removing the hoard of pines that live on our four acres here. Hundreds of them had to come down to create a safety zone for the house, and hundreds of others to provide us with view. The problem is that I like pines; any self-respecting Canadian would like pines. But here in my adopted country, they are an invasive species. They spread like wildfire and they can de-Australianise a landscape over the course of a couple of decades. So we kept removing them.

Nonetheless, some 30 or so at the bottom of our hill survived the purges.

Until the recent one.

I was uneasy about losing these remaining pines, in particular four or five old-timers, each with a 10 metre span of sweeping branches. But because I could see it was important to the others that this lower area be restored to its natural Australian bush state, I agreed the pines could go. I consented.

Sort of.

On the day the last massive tree fell, my true colours emerged.

I looked down the hill in profound shock. My oasis of green and shade and healthy growth and forest floor was GONE – never to return. I was devastated. When I went down the hill I would burst into tears; I couldn’t sit even on the side of the table where I might accidently glance in that direction.

It took me a couple of weeks of suffering before I started sharing about it with my housemates, acknowledging my deep-seated emotions and ‘fessing up to bad thoughts I’d had.

Sociocracy focuses on transparency and trust. Had I been transparent and trusting a few weeks earlier, I could have saved myself considerable misery. As sociocracy advises, I am looking to give my full consent, wholeheartedly and after luxuriant consideration – to understand what is good for our community beyond what feels good for myself. To say “I do” and mean it.

The three philosophers I mentioned earlier, who propelled the notion of sociocracy into existence, had big dreams for it: the emergence of “a new spirit breaking through” among humankind. “May it be,” Kees Boekes said, “that after the many centuries of fear, suspicion and hate, more and more a spirit of reconciliation and mutual trust will spread abroad…practice and education will provide the real solution to all world problems.”

Well, that might be a while coming. But meantime, we’ll continue giving it an informal workout at Mitchells Island.

It doesn’t mean I don’t love you

There are two big things I want and I’m not sure if I can have them both. But I want them, like a child who should be able to have its way.

Let me explain. Perhaps you can help explore this dilemma with me – and I’d love it if you can provide some insight.

These are the two things I want: to be included, and to be selective.

Let’s start with inclusion.

Sometimes we’re just like a basketful of puppies here at the Shedders homestead. Take, for example, last night. New friends Meg and Rosemary (invited by me) had come up from Sydney to spend a couple of days, enjoy new friendships, and observe a co-housing community in action. Simultaneously, old friends Peter and Bill (invited by Eve) arrived for a few nights, to enjoy the tranquillity of the country while refreshing our friendships and our gardens.

The evening got off to a potentially dodgy start when we all gathered in the kitchen at 6:00 pm for appetisers, after a day out and about with our guests – only to discover that Daniel had forgotten earlier in the day to turn on the slow cooker for Rick’s meal. Uh-oh. Four visitors and nothing for dinner. That drama was quickly resolved as some of us pondered the fridges, some laid out the cheeses and uncorked the wine, and others set about finding things in common and getting to know one another. We spent a most sociable hour or so, after which we sat around the table enjoying what turned out to be an excellent meal. We swapped stories and played games. There was much laughter and that sense of joyous exploration that happens as you come to know good people even better. I felt warmed by a powerful fire of camaraderie, and watched my friends illuminated by the light of the same blaze.

I felt included; we all did. That can be a consequence of living in a tightly-knit community.

And then there’s selectivity. You might not immediately see that as part of a dilemma, but consider this:

Our friend Desley, renowned for a certain bluntness, expressed the problem perfectly in a conversation I had with her the other day. “It’s a bit perplexing to me how I can I invite one of you without inviting all of you,” she said. “What if I don’t want all six of you for dinner?  I mean, it’s not that I don’t like you all, because I do,” she added hastily, “but sometimes it’s nice to just sit down for a meal in a small conversational group.” She gave me a look. “I hope I haven’t offended you.”

Well, there you have it. That’s another consequence of living in a tightly-knit community.

My fellow Shedders provide a strong platter of interests for me. The six of us have a lot in common, which is of course what got us into relationship in the first place. Thus it’s not a coincidence that Rick, Daniel, Eve and I, who have lived together here for over three years now, all belong to the same community choir, the same book club, the same boat club, the same men’s/women’s group. Now that Michael and Judy have arrived, they are contemplating joining some of these groups as well. Five of us are yoga enthusiasts. All of us care about food, healthy eating, weight control, longevity. We all like our big gardens. These common interests give us activities to share and things to talk about.

You might predict they also give us quite a number of friends in common.

And with these other friends, I share somewhat different interests, hobbies and concerns. Desley, her husband Ian and I all have a background in teaching that bonds us. Stella and I can talk compost for hours. Griz and I share an engaging past work life. Robyn and I’ve been through a lot of relationship-miles together. There’s nobody like Diane with whom to talk about the kids. I like speculating about the future of the world with Gordon, and the exquisiteness of life with Kerry. About music with Trish and writing with Stephen. Beautiful things with Sal. Farming with Ian. Wondrous sights with Lenore. My list is only getting started, but you get my drift.

So here’s the thing, said baldly: I want to be able to socialise with Desley and Ian, or anyone else, without the rest of my housemates in attendance. I’d like to be invited to their house, or to invite them here for a home-cooked meal. I want to sit down with them to explore life in an intimate setting.

But you can imagine that it’s difficult to say to my housemates, “We’re having So-and-So for dinner tonight, so could you please stay in your rooms for the evening?” It’s also not easy to say to So-and-So (especially when you live in the country), “Can we meet for dinner in Taree? I’m thinking of Café Mediocre, unless you’d prefer Restaurante Mucho Pricey?” *

I remember my daughter Jenn as a teenager had a strong preference for one twin sister over the other, and struggled with how to invite only Michelle for an overnighter. These are common enough issues, but not ones that most people our age have to deal with regularly at close range. I suspect that sometimes we adults try to arrange our lives so that we won’t have to encounter the feelings that come along with excluding or being excluded. But we’re not going to be able to avoid them in our communal situation.

We had a discussion about Desley’s comment among the Shedders a few weeks ago. We all agreed that the socialising thing was an issue for people, and thought about how we might start letting the world know we’re not a sextet joined at the hip. I shared how I have smelled the fetid breath of the pair of hounds called Jealousy and Left Out. Even the grown-up Heather knows what it is to feel excluded, or to be excluding people you love.

My sister-in-law’s Canadian-accented voice just echoed in my head: “Suck it up, Princess,” she’s saying. In other words, just get on with it. Learn; grow; deal with the feelings. Five years from now, the Shedders don’t want to be saying, “Funny how nobody invites us out anymore.”

Sometimes inclusiveness rules, and sometimes selectivity.

It’s another climb on the learning curve for us Shedders.

* * *

* I confess that the comment about the Taree restaurants was a cheap shot. We have any number of perfectly acceptable eateries in the neighbourhood. (But my point remains.)

A buttress for our lives

I got an SMS from my housemate Michael yesterday: “Have been camped here at the hospital with Judy since 10:00am. Night rougher than expected – pain and nausea – but coming good today.”

Well, that was excellent news. Judy has just had a double hip replacement, meaning she woke up yesterday with two spanking new titanium hips – in pain but with a future of pain-free stretching in front of her. She’ll be in the hospital for a week, in rehab for another, and then home to learn her way back to a fully physical life. That’s a big ask for Judy, who is one of the most active 60+ people I know. She cycles long distances, swims for hours, walks forever, kayaks and dances and gardens and does yoga. But it hasn’t been easy for her the past many months, and it won’t be all roses for the next two or three.

So Judy might be lucky that she belongs to a small community with an explicit intention to provide support for one another. I mentioned in a recent post that this was one of our three core intentions in setting up our intentional community (along with “to share interests” and “to save money”) – now and into the future. Perhaps even into the far distant future.

For the past while we’ve given Judy a hand here and there. We cut her slack in housecleaning duties and don’t let her push the wheelbarrow.  We’ve picked up some of her share of the responsibilities we all have for looking after the house and gardens. (Not all that much, mind you, as she’s an excruciatingly self-sufficient woman.) The heavy-lifters in the house raised her bed onto big blocks so it will be at the right height when she comes home. Eve has been giving her special yoga exercises/practices to alleviate her pain and keep up her strength and flexibility. Everyone has been an ear for her when she’s been in pain or worried about the surgery. Things like that. We’ve been providing support.

When Judy returns, the support will continue. Michael will carry the brunt of it, as husbands do, but we’re all there to provide support for him as well. He won’t be the only one helping with Judy’s special stockings, or doing the cooking, or guiding her exercise program, or giving her encouragement.

This is of course not the first time we’ve provided mutual support.

A few years ago Daniel was trying to extricate himself from his business; he was so close to striking a deal with his partner, but they couldn’t seem to stay on the same side of the table long enough to iron out details and make it work. Daniel was completely resigned about it. From where I sat, I could see how close they were, and could see what was missing for Daniel to be able to drive the deal home. Daniel grabbed the coaching, did his planning, set up a meeting with his partner, and walked away with exactly what he wanted. To this day, Daniel acknowledges me for my contribution in that.

I have walking and movement challenges, the legacy of a polio attack when I was very young. I find everyone in the household to be empathetic and discerning. Add to that Eve’s yogic talent for understanding bodies, then giving them the exercise they need while relaxing and unencumbering them – and you’ll know what I mean when I say I’m in very good hands here.

Yesterday Daniel sat beside me at my computer for over half an hour converting my Shedders document for e-pub in Calibre (I’m sure you’d love me to explain what that means but I won’t). A half hour isn’t much, but the amount of time Daniel has contributed to me and everyone else here over the years as he’s solved our various computer mysteries adds up to enough to guarantee him decades in heaven. Do I need to mention that he lives a couple metres away, just across the hall, and doesn’t charge a cent?

These are but a few examples of what the Shedders provide for each other on a daily basis.

I did an interview on the subject of co-housing this week (as you can tell, I’m becoming such an expert) with a reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald who is planning a feature story on the subject. He asked a piercing question: “I can see it’s working out for you six,” he said. “But have you thought that you might be a special case? Perhaps you’re a rare breed with enough money, the right life skills and the special drive to make it happen and make it work.”

His question really gets to the heart of this blog: the reason I’m writing it, and the reason I wrote Shedders, is because I think what we’re doing is more than just an interesting tale. It’s working for the six of us – but I don’t think we are by any means unique. I speak to Meg in Sydney, Godfrey in Bellingen and Paul in Vancouver who are in the process to trying to launch something similar to what we’ve done, and I think, yes, they’ll do it and they’ll profit from it, exactly as we have.  As Eve said when we talked about the interview, “I can tell you what it took to accomplish what we did. Two things. We have a strong desire to belong, and we have a willingness to give things up.”

I reckon that’s true of a lot of people.

When all is said and done, it’s support that we’re all after. Emotional, physical and intellectual support. We know we will profit from having our lives, our projects, our dreams buttressed by others.

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 I took this photo of the famous Curtain Fig when we were in the Atherton Tablelands a few months ago. Now, THERE is a tree – held up high in the sky by thousands of supporting hands.

 

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NB: The six of us have flagged that we need to have a discussion about what things might look like when the survivors here get really old. Walkers-demented-home-bound old. That’s a whole different level of caring and not what I mean by “support” in this post. I’ll give you a rundown on that conversation when we’ve had it. (Don’t hold your breath. It’s not a subject we’re keen to discuss.)

Dancing in style

What happens when six people who all happen to have an interest in style and design move into a collective household together?

Now, if 100 monkeys on typewriters could accidentally recreate the Bible, given enough time, as the old claim goes, you should be able to find six housemates with identical tastes.

But what are the odds?

Well, we haven’t achieved quite that much alignment here. It’s true that each of us wants a beautiful, well-designed and decorated home, yet, monkeys notwithstanding, we don’t have an identical view of how that should happen. Nonetheless, we have a good-looking habitat.

Last weekend my girlfriend Griz walked into our house for the first time and nearly fell over with joy at the beauty of it. She loved the design: the spaciousness, the high ceilings, the wall-to-wall array of windows taking advantage of the fabulous rural views. She admired the décor: the bold clock that fills the space over a window, the little pentych of Eve’s etchings that lives on the wall near the entrance, the splash of orange and green cushions lying about on our sofas and chairs.

As she enthused, I allowed a glimmer of pride at what we’ve created.

 

You know how sometimes you walk into someone’s house; it looks fabulous, and you say, wow, this place is Marjorie all over. It’s a temple to Marjorie’s taste and style. You could probably give the style a name, like quirky, elegant, Balinese, country, casual chic, or restrained.

To use a real-life example, I give you Ken and Sal, who have created a stunning new B&B in the neighbourhood. Sal’s taste in retro fills every nook and cranny of the house and guest rooms with beautiful things from the past – things that are full of history, life, questions. Ken’s sense of restoration makes top use of vintage timber and materials. The style of McGowans’ B&B is a temple to Ken and Sal’s warmth, insight, boundless curiosity and energy.

Our own home couldn’t be more different. I’m not sure it has a clear-cut style, which most often comes from an integrated approach – and how on earth could we get an integrated approached with six different tastes directing the show?

Yet our home has a certain something, a happy, comfortable, confident look that in some way reflects who we all are.

In my experience there are two ways of achieving a look that works when you’re in a communal situation, and we’ve used both.

#1. Hire an expert 

You might remember in Shedders I described how we often used an external design “expert” to help align our tastes. When we first moved in to this spacious, modern, clean-lined home, we looked warily at our kluge of old furniture and accessories. I knew we had a few weeks at most before she’ll-be-right settled in and we’d no longer feel obliged to change a thing. So we contacted Di Nolan, a well-regarded Taree decorator. She came for a visit, notepad in hand, and then a few days later, fired us off a number of ideas for accessories we might purchase, as well as ways of integrating our existing pieces. Best of all, she included a colour chart (turquoise, lime green, bright oranges and reds), which gave us a heartland from which we could all explore.

Consulting with an expert is one way to create a style. But better yet…

#2. Prepare to dance

I have a music collection I love and would have to call highly eclectic. New Orleans jazz CDs sit alongside a wide range of classical albums. I have bluegrass, great country and pretty much all of Frank Sinatra. Among my favourites are a couple of CDs by my cousin Terry’s Bluesland. Anyone of good musical taste could happily lose him or herself in my music collection for quite some time.

My music, defined in part by love and by variety, relates to my point about happy design.

You could compare my collection with the life of the little shelf at the end of our hall. The hall leads into the lounge area, and because of its position the shelf is a bit of a feature wall. For a while it highlighted Rick’s colourful wooden shoes from his days working in the Netherlands with IBM. The wooden shoes migrated to the library shelves one day, and a big red china Buddha showed up in their place. Buddha reigned until he was shifted to a new location when protea season arrived and abruptly vase after vase of heavy showy blossoms dominated. Then, not long after Michael and Judy moved in, an antique treadle sewing machine found its way into the space, surmounted in pride of place with a big blue-veined Malaysian ginger jar.

That’s the way it is around here. Someone gets a design idea (founded always in something they love) and tries it out. Sometimes there’s a lot of consultation, sometimes a new look just seems to happen.

I tell this story because if you are thinking about sharing your future with others as we do in this collective household, you will find that one of the challenges you will face will be the assimilation of your cherished things. Some you may not want to share; some you may want in pride of place. You will find yourself in a continuous dance of sharing, surrender and appreciation. And, of course, learning.

What none of us, you most likely included, want to do is whitewash. We’re not after that up-market aged-care facility look where no expense has been spared to create an inoffensive (read, “soulless”) look. No elevator muzak for us. Let our communal dwellings, our kitchens and halls and libraries and gathering areas, have style! – but let them express a dance that reflects our shared life. The work we put into learning to dance and into dancing itself is what has us live together with such vitality.