Why live together?
Hi everyone,
This substack / newsletter / podcast has been a long time coming in my head. I have dabbled with different kinds of co-living for around 7 years, living in different communities for a few months at a time, forming one for about two years and now giving an intergenerational household a try.
Ever since I had my first taste of community living at Full Boom in Southern Oregon in 2014, I felt that a household that goes beyond the usual single / couple with/ without children format, made a lot of sense.
Although I enjoy being a hermit from time to time, I really appreciate the way living in community encourages me to communicate more clearly, find my boundaries, pop out of my story and try doing things differently. I also love the greater abundance that sharing space and resources unlocks.
My first communal house stemmed out of need more than anything else. Heavily pregnant and living in a tiny hat shop in the car-ridden baroque capital of Malta, Valletta - I craved and needed more space. Renting a big house with a garden as four adults, one baby, a cat and two chickens seemed like a step that made sense at the time. And it did. Completely unprepared for what it might entail, we courageously jumped into a situation where we lived and worked together out of this house. But that is a story for another time.
Resource-wise, co-housing or co-living makes sense in my pragmatic head. I loathe to think about all the big empty houses where just one person lives or the tiny cramped apartments which could really do with some additional garden / kitchen / hangout space to supplement what’s available.
As a parent of a young child, I love the company and help that living with others close-by provides. Granted it requires navigating mindfully, but I so appreciate the possibilities that living together unlocks. I also hope it will mean greater openness to change and different ways of doing things for my child. Finding myself in Germany at the beginning of the pandemic last year, I came across an Atlantic article titled The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake. I nodded and read out parts to my partner and kept thinking about it as my two-week intergenerational stay extended to 7 months thanks to Covid-19. One year later we’ve moved in with the out-laws to delve a bit deeper into this intergenerational experiment.
This newsletter and podcast is my way of making sense of my love for communal living. Perhaps also a way of reminding myself of this love in the maddening moments when I want nothing short of the kind of living space where I can easily avoid everyone.
I hope to share tools and methods that help me hold on to my sanity and promote greater harmony. And have conversations with others whose experience / knowledge / expertise I find intriguing and helpful for anyone curios to thread this path. I do hope you will join me in my exploration.
Much love,
Greta