Nudging at Boundaries

Author: Julie Boerst
Published in Communities Magazine Issue #146

The sun brushes the treetops and I hear Buster crowing. I go to the chickens, open up the coop, clean it up like it’s a big kitty litter box, and listen to the soft clucking as the birds begin their foray into the acreage that surrounds our homes. I take the eggs left behind and put them in Steve and Laura’s fridge. Why am I taking care of these chickens not my own? Because it comes to me to do it. Because the chickens eat the bugs out of my yard. Because I’m fond of watching them pecking in the clover and love to throw some corn in their direction.

This is how family is taking shape here at White Hawk Ecovillage—a sort of soft, friendly give and take that nudges at the boundaries that exist in traditional neighborhoods. If you’re going to nudge at boundaries, you’ve got to be sensitive—to the stiffness in a posture, the downcast eye, when someone’s tone leaps into nervousness or agitation, when my own tone does that. You need to know when to come and when to go if you’re living in a community where you’re in and out of each other’s houses, yards, and chicken coops.

Food that I did not make shows up at my house—popcorn, spring rolls, muffins, pie. Food shows up at my neighbors’ houses—cookies, cakes, squash. Some of my family’s food is cached in Greg’s root cellar, which he has opened to all of us. We are getting the hang of effortless sharing. It’s interesting to see how a quick! quick! reciprocate! alarm went off inside me when I first received, obscuring the gift someone offered. Now I know to just do my job—to give when it occurs to me and to receive when it comes to me, to say no when that comes to me, too.

Sometimes what occurs to me is funny. Bring nettle tea to Greg! Bring nettle tea to Greg! Why? He’s probably busy working. I don’t want to interrupt. Bring nettle tea to Greg! So I give in and just do it. There. It’s not so hard.

There are fun little uproars. Someone has taken all the shovels! Where have they gone? I need a shovel! I should have a shovel! We learn to rub the rough edges off each other, communicate honestly and directly, hear when that querulous and utterly nonproductive note creeps into our voices. We are seeing the little stories about ourselves that emerge, settling down into more plain and simple fact. It’s exactly the same as learning how to get along with a partner, a daughter, a mother.

Kids are allowed to be who they are. No one remarks about my child in his extended hermit phase, preferring to spend the bulk of his time inside with trains rather than roaming our 120 acres. Children may play naked or half-naked. Parents don’t have to worry about the stigma of having kids outside without coats in cold weather. All of us know when and how to indicate a need for more warmth, for more or less of anything, and we are all free to do that.

As people come and go, come and go from our home, I am fortunate that I am unable to maintain a standard of cleanliness that would say something nice and orderly about me. I am grateful for that. I drop another layer of identity and obligation and just let myself clean the house exactly when I do. I notice I don’t apologize anymore for the way my house looks. It seems preposterous to me now, almost like telling the clerk at the grocery store, “I’m so sorry I’m probably not pretty enough to please you!” Entirely unnecessary.

The day I sweep Laura’s floor, I have a breakthrough. Her girls have been playing with salt and her hands are full. It occurs to me to grab a broom, simultaneously terrified that I may be saying something about the house or her ability to handle things. But really, I’m just sweeping the floor—the floor gritty underfoot, the floor she’s sighing over. She comes to my house and helps herself to juice. Good! So this is how it is—boundaries easing, no need to play hostess or capable mother. It feels nice.

I’m writing this article before dawn with all my shades up, exposing me entirely. We installed shades before we got here because we value our privacy and love having the option of enclosing ourselves. I notice that I don’t care as much about being enclosed, though. Before, I put the shades down to smother an uncomfortable sense of being on display, on stage. Now that occurs to me less, maybe because I act a little less like I’m on display in my day-to-day life. Being in community brings me face-to-face with the image that I make of myself more often, and it invites me to let the image crumble. At the same time, hooray for shades. I love them.

I like to drink Coke. I used to prefer to do so with the shades down. How could I let them see my terrible weakness? Terrible weakness or not, I do it with shades up or down now, with a still-perceptible degree of self-consciousness. So is this the definition of family? The people who are allowed to see you drink Coke? The people who are allowed to see you greedy, sheepish, ashamed, and happy about it?

My day-to-day experience is family, as the stay-at-home mother to a one-year-old and four-year-old. Two-year-old twins live two houses down. No, they’re not all best buddies. No, they don’t spend all their time together. There’s no need to create a cheery and idealistic picture of that. They come and go when they do, sometimes sharing smiles and moments. Laura (the twins’ mother) and I bounce back and forth between our homes, adding variety to our days. My daughter is currently fascinated by her daughters, staring at them in awe, reaching up to stroke their hair. Sometimes two whole days go by and I think how odd that I haven’t seen them. Sometimes I’m over there five times a day. Today it was three times by 7 a.m.—once to tiptoe in and put eggs in the fridge, once to add one more, once to put a plate of cookies on the table.

I wonder what it will be like when there are more homes, more bouncing, more exchange. I wonder if a certain stiffness will arise, an image of community to uphold, an identity grasped with white knuckles or a sense of self-importance. I realize that’s up to me. What will I uphold in any particular moment? What will I allow to unfold?

A couple from Long Island is coming to visit today, and I have forgotten entirely. I am pleased that I have done this, that I have not spent the entire preceding day attempting to make my home appear like a suitable image of White Hawk, one that will entice and convince. Today this home will be what it is. Maybe it will invite new members into our extended family.

White Hawk Ecovillage
The author lives at White Hawk Ecovillage, a growing intentional community on 120 acres near Ithaca, New York, with 30 home sites and three households in residence. Members value the kind of sustainable living, interaction, and sharing that emerges spontaneously in community.