Last Thursday, I called my sister-in-law at work.
“Tammy McK…., this is Laura McK… Get your hiney over here for a pasta dinner after work.”
“I’m there. By 5:00 at the latest.”
My sister was called.
“Meem. [an old nickname] Dinner.”
“Great. I’ll bring the bikes and a salad.”
As the doors to Maria’s SUV slid open, her two girls leapt out. “Hiiii. An-TEE Laur-RAH” Tammy drove up with her almond-eyed girl, Julia, in the back. My guys bounded down the steps of the porch. The five kids cycled in circles in front of the house and were quickly joined by the neighborhood urchins who had sniffed out the party.
After an hour, I brought in Ian and made dinner for everyone. A plastic table cloth went on the dining room table. Paper plates for all. Pasta, salad, steamed broccoli, and garlic bread. Jarred pasta sauce is hardly an inspired meal, but it’s something that everyone eats. I made up for the sauce with the salad which had fresh pepper, sliced red onion, pine nuts, feta cheese, and Brianna’s vinaigrette. Maria brought strawberries. Then I pulled out Shop Rite ice cream sandwiches.
Everyone had a great time. Considering how close we live to each other, we don’t do this enough. Maybe we rely on my mother to organize these events. All the after school activities makes it hard to come up with a night that everyone is free. It’s a shame, because these common dinners conserve so much energy.
It was a meal that I had already planned on making that evening and was easily expanded to feed the guests. Maybe I spent an extra $3. Instead of boiling one pound of pasta, I made two. Same pot of water. An extra 50 cents of pasta. I slurped some Barilla sauce over it. With the guests I used the whole jar, instead of freezing the leftover sauce. One head of broccoli. A few extra leaves of lettuce. An extra loaf of bread. I fed three adults, five kids, and had leftovers for the husbands.
Socially, it was a good thing, too. I had two other adults to talk to, and the kids had companions.
I periodically get interested in joint living facilities. I always thought it would be fun to live on a commune with naked babies and chickens running about. Maybe a family compound with a watch tower. In the 80s, I followed some experiments with joint living housing with common areas for eating and socializing. Joint living uses less resources, is more economical, reduces work, and staves off loneliness. Two single people can save a fortune by jointly owning a home, rather than purchases two homes on their own. All those situations have many benefits. Not to mention, you get to fire your gun off the watch tower whenever you like.
But nobody is interested. Not many people are clambering to get into communal housing. Instead everybody seeks out larger homes on larger plots of land. With all the families on our block, nobody ever suggests a joint meal.
I guess people find other people really annoying. My family can do these common meals, because we’re all family. I can tell my sister that she better help me clean the pots and not worry that she’ll flip out too badly. It’s hard to do that with non-family. If one kid messes up, the adults don’t get too mad, because all the kids share the same DNA.
But with non-family, it’s just not worth the effort. People would rather be lonely and poor, rather than deal other people’s quirks and weirdness.
Apt. 11d 
I visualize an old-fashioned motel, with all those little free-standing units–add tiny kitchens and it is all good–with a social hall and a big kitchen. Time apart, time together, breathing in an organic way. Maybe ritual–Sunday night communal dinners, Wednesday night communal dinners, the other nights fend for yourself.
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I disagree. We have dinner almost every Sunday night with three other couples–a total of eight adults and nine children–who are not related to one another. (We have all known one another since we were pregnant with our oldests, who were all born the same month–yes, we met on a birthmonth list–and so it’s like we’re all related when we all get together…but we’re not.) It’s the highlight of our week…and if we could all only figure out WHERE we would be able to afford a big-enough house, we’d be all over the commune idea!
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After growing up at a boarding school (which housed the staff permanently, my parents were staff), then off to college dorms, then college apartments. My six other housemates in my apartment my last two years of college, we decided that we weren’t going to be just housemates with joint bills. We each put money in an envelope every month and took turns buying groceries for everyone. We cooked together, we ate together, we hashed out global politics together, we had coffee together, we invited interesting people to eat with us. We always had company. (And total food bill ended up being about 30 cents a meal per person, and that fed company, too.) We called it living intentionally.
I’ve often wondered how to recreate that.
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The community thing isn’t completely lost yet. We live on a wonderful dead-end street in small town New England. We know ALL our neighbors and often have dinner with our friends four doors down. In fact, it’s rather utopia esq.
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Thanks, guys. I love hearing those stories. When it works out, it’s such a good thing. Like Jeannette, I would like to see how to recreate or replicate your examples. Right now, it seems that the most vital community life I see is on the Internet. OK, who’s making the pasta this week, guys.
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There are people living in intentional communities. tammylc lives in one, and often writes about her workshare: cooking for the community.
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I was thinking more about this after I went to bed last night.
There is something about the easy way of the college-age crowd that invites this kind of living. And one can continue with the “living intentionally” (as we called it) even after those years and “growing up”. I think the backbone of this kind of mindset is hospitality. It’s hard to have an open door. Who always has meals planned and presentable house? And how many times have we been invited to someone’s house and we think ‘oh good, we’ll get to know them better’ and we end up watching TV the whole time?! Is sitting around a dinner solving the world’s problems such a lost art? Then you add kids into the picture. Bedtimes, food allergies, and exhaustion work against you even more. It’s hard to be guests, it’s hard to host.
Hospitality is hard work, sometimes, even if you just want to have your sister over (who won’t care about the three layers of crud on your kitchen floor). It’s rewarding. But one has to intentionally make room for it. I think living a life of hospitality will provide the community that you talked of in your post.
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This is one of my dream communities: http://www.sonoracohousing.com/
I know it’s not perfect, but I’ve visited and miss that kind of kibbutz (without the mixed finances) community.
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Don’t you think, though, that it’s partly a matter of finding the right people? If I’d lived in the same place all my life, I’d now have 15-20 people (plus spouses and kids) I’d absolutely love to have dinner with once a week or even more. I’d do the same with my sister, cousins, parents, and aunts/uncles if they were nearby. But now I’m getting to know people in a place I’ve lived less than a year, and there are probably two people I’d like to eat with once a week, and one of them is even less sociable than I am.
The truth is, I think, many other people are annoying, especially if you like solitude, as I do. (And I’m sure I’m annoying to them!) I don’t mind doing some work to develop friendships – I have potlucks, invite people out, etc. – but the kind of community you’re talking about takes time and/or luck.
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“Don’t you think, though, that it’s partly a matter of finding the right people?”
It’s certainly easier and more fun up front with the right people.
But I think true community and happiness is finding community with whomever you are around, even people that are harder to get to know at first.
You’re definitely right on the time thing…it all takes time.
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