Splashing in the creek

From Homeschooling

The other day we headed off with some friends to play in the creek about 30-40 minutes away from us where there is a national forest.  It really was a wonderful day. We splashed (even me. by accident. Twice.) and we had a picnic lunch with friends. I think the "with friends" part is the key element to the whole thing. Everything is more fun when you aren't doing it alone, huh?

And yet doing things with other people is really hard for me. I love it, but it really is hard to ask without seeming like you are bothering them or that they don't like you enough to go and do stuff with you. Those lessons of early schooling get in there deeply, don't they? The unofficial ones I mean.

I heard a podcast of a story from NPR today about a movement titled "Wanna Start a Commune?"  or alternatively titled Cul-de-sac Communes, which I like better, and I smiled to myself. This is cohousing of the retrofit variety, a passion of mine for years. We tried a forming cohousing group on when we moved to this new area of California but the whole thing was too mired in meetings and consensus and ended up slowly dying away after a group camping trip when we realized that it really was never going to happen. And honestly, the whole concept of building a neighborhood seemed opposed to what we really wanted out of a home and neighborhood. Condos are for short term living. Not to mention the unnecessary waste of building yet another development. 

Now here in our neighborhood we have, not a commune or even cohousing, but neighbors. Friends with whom we go trick-or-treating, share a much too large batch of cookies, send kids back and forth for playing, gather for impromptu bicycle riding a few times a week, etc. It would be wonderful to add a layer of commune on top of that, kind of like those pages in the encyclopedia which had the human body with clear plastic pages with bones and muscle group overlays. Just a light blanket of togetherness and community, without all that love-in, bath-free, hatin' on the man stuff.

One of my blog friends (used to be in-person till that move) has a neighborhood that I picture as perfect for this (Sheree, I'm looking at you! I would put a direct link to some of your neighborhood stuff, but I can't seem to find anything right now. Of course.) Suffice it to say, neighborhood movie nights, block parties, potlucks and progressive dinners sound pretty great. And now my cookie bars are done and we are, believe it or not, off to a neighborhood bike ride.