Itineraries Fall 2005
Contents:
No Longer at Ease: Reflections on Hurricane Katrina by Bolton Anthony
Pushing Through Solid Rock by Wesley Burwell, D. Min.
Creativity in Later Life by Janice Blanchard
Want a Good Bedtime Story? by Pat Samples
Review: Senior Cohousing by Charles Durrett reviewed by Lisa Bolton
No Longer at Ease: Reflections on Hurricane Katrina by Bolton Anthony
No longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
— T.S. Eliot, “The Journey of the Magi”
Probably like many others in the country, I have been captive to the news ever since hurricane Katrina took aim two weeks ago at my hometown. New Orleans is “where I’m from”; though we moved to Houston when I was six, both sides of my family have roots in New Orleans that go back generations. My oldest son was born there after I returned — just out of graduate school — to teach English and creative writing at a black university in the late sixties. Like anyone who has spent time in New Orleans — who has had the peculiar experience of walking up, not down, to the river — I knew what disaster waited if the city took a direct hit from so fierce a storm and the waters topped the levees.
I’d had minor surgery on Friday, and — under orders to do nothing —spent most of my time watching the hellish images wash across the television screen: the miles and miles of devastated coastline, the flooded sections of the city, and the anarchy at the Convention Center and the Superdome where the poorest of the poor were left to fend for themselves — without food, without water, without succor or rites for the dying and the dead.
We had house guests Wednesday evening. After dinner we ventured out for dessert to a restaurant at the mall. Stepping outside for the first time in five days, it came as almost a physical shock to see the houses in our neighborhood standing undamaged and the streets free of toxic water and storm debris: the storm had become such an all-consuming reality.
At the mall we stopped to tour one of Chapel Hill’s stranger landmarks, a self-styled “gourmet emporium” known as A Southern Season. And as we meandered through this seemingly endless collection of esoteric items — whole aisles devoted exclusively to hot sauces, to green tea, to Belgian chocolates; display after display of glassware and fine china, of crudité and paté platters, of rare and vintage wines — I tried to understand the knot gripping my stomach.
There was nothing here I needed. Among the hundreds of thousands of items, there was not one thing I needed. My sense of need had undergone a radical leveling triggered by the images of those who lacked the most basic things we need for survival.
My wife Lisa, who is trained as a psychiatric nurse, volunteered 10 days ago for deployment to the Gulf Coast and is stationed, as of yesterday, at a Red Cross evacuation center in Natchez, Mississippi, where she will provide grief and crisis counseling. The tremendous pride I have felt in what she is doing is accompanied by the regret that I have no comparably “useful” skill set with on-the-ground applications.
It has also come home to me that Lisa’s ability to respond is the true gift of her time of life. She “no longer has to worry about raising a family, pleasing a boss, or earning more money.” From the dividend our generation now enjoys — all those extra years of life — comes “the chance to join with others in building a compassionate society, [a society] where people can think deep thoughts, create beauty, study nature, teach the young, worship what they hold sacred, and care for one another” — “the chance to do great good against great odds” (Theodore Roszak). “‘Tis a consummation/ Devoutly to be wish’d” and the faith and hope behind my own work with Second Journey.
I told Lisa before she left that I knew she would come back changed. If watching television accounts was enough to trigger soul-searching and a reassessment of one’s personal priorities, how much more witnessing the devastation and human suffering firsthand? I expect a homecoming not unlike that of T.S. Eliot’s magi who return to their “Kingdoms” disquieted: “No longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,/ With an alien people clutching their gods.” It will be a challenge to keep up with Lisa.
The scriptural readings this Sunday came from the great story of the Exodus — how Yahweh’s avenging angel, coming as fire and water, rescued the Hebrews and led them out of the slave camps of Egypt. In Katrina we have seen another avenging angel. She has torn aside the veil behind which was hid that “other America”. She has delivered “the lost and the forgotten ones” — the anawim to whom Jesus promised the Kingdom of Heaven and the Earth as their inheritance. She has delivered them from their ruined city, branded our hearts with indelible images of their exodus, and scattered their numbers through every state in this country where it is hoped they shall be much harder to ignore.
I am writing this on the fourth anniversary of the terrorist attack of September 11. I am writing with fervent hope that we will not again squander the opportunity that a great national tragedy presents. I have in mind specifically the way the public conversation after 9/11 was co-opted:
“In those first weeks, it was as if we had all gone down to our own Ground Zero, the Ground Zero in our hearts and our souls. The public conversation expressed the most beautiful values and behavior in the inspiring examples of the rescue workers, the world’s support and love for the American people, and every American’s desire to help, give blood, or send money. People opened their hearts in so many ways…
“Then after just a few weeks, when the collective state of shock and mourning started to show up as an economic downturn, specifically as a serious fall in retail sales, President George W. Bush in a televised address called upon Americans to support the economy by getting back to business, the business of spending money. Shopping was portrayed as an expression of patriotism, a way to show the terrorists that they could not destroy our economy, our consumerism, the American spirit, or the American way of life.”
The point of Lynne Twist’s essay is that a conversation grounded in sufficiency — a conversation which united us in mutual support and opened our national conscience to deep soul searching — became a conversation grounded in scarcity — a conversation which divided us from our global neighbors and stoked our fears. “The you-and-me world vanished, replaced by the you-or-me world.”
I hope this doesn’t happen again. I hope the public conversation which could lead to a thoughtful re-evaluation of national priorities — around such critical issues as poverty in America, conservation of our wetlands, our oil dependence, and global warming (to name a few) — does not again become co-opted.
I hope we continue “no longer at ease” in our “old dispensation” of conspicuous consumption…for a long, long time
Pushing Through Solid Rock: The Burdens and Benefits of the Dying Process by Wesley Burwell, D. Min.
Wesley Burwell, D.Min., spent twenty years serving four Congregational/United Church of Christ parishes in New Hampshire. For another twenty-seven years he was in private practice in New Hampshire as a Licensed Pastoral Psychotherapist. Now, in retirement, he divides his time between serving as Spiritual Care Coordinator for Seacoast Hospice, guiding Rites of Passage for elders, and his family. Wes was a a participant in Second Journey’s September 2004 Visioning Council, which was held at Wisdom House in Litchfield CT, and plans to attend the October 13-16 Visioning Council on Health and Well-Being in the Second Half of Life which will be held at the Wildacres Retreat Center in western North Carolina.
Once for each thing. Just once; no more.
And we too, just once. And never again.
There are spiritual benefits available to each of us in our dying process if we want to claim them. It all depends on whether we want to intentionally live our lives, up to whatever fullness is possible, or choose instead a living death.
Living and dying are not two separate processes; they are both at work in us together at the same time – at both the cellular level and the spiritual level. While we don’t have much control over the processes themselves, we do have considerable choice about how we are going to react to living and dying and what meaning we choose to make of it.
The process of living is a process of building up connections: connections to others, connections to our own way of being in the world, connections to our own body and the world of nature, connections that when they are all put together constitute the meaning we make out of life. In each stage of our life — from childhood to elderhood — we work hard to make these connections. And just when we begin to feel comfortable with what we have built, it all begins to fall apart.
We may be reacting to something in the familiar old way, when we notice that there is something about our response that doesn’t quite fit. Later on we respond to the familiar situation in the same old way again, and this time it is even less appropriate. What is going on here? What is wrong with me? Other ways of being and responding begin to fall apart. We feel confused. We descend into chaos. What worked so well yesterday when we were 12 years old, is not working today when we’ve turned 13 — something about hormones, they say, and growth spurts and hair growing in strange places. Something is dying. Something is out of control. We’re losing the comfortable connections we worked so hard to put together. And we suffer because of those losses.
And sometimes in the midst of our suffering, we choose what the sacred scriptures of the ancient Mayan culture called the Way of the Worm. We just don’t want to hurt anymore. We’re tired of being confused. We slither and slide and crawl around the pain. We’d do anything to feel better.
The alternative is to choose the Way of the Cougar. We face the darkness within us, wrestle with the conflicting shadows and turbulent energies. We try to figure out what kind of person we want to be. We make mistakes but discover what we don’t want. We try again. And gradually, what at first had felt as scary as the Devil turns out to be an Angel. Like Jacob who refused to give up the struggle until he was given a blessing, we emerge from the darkness chastened, but with new strength, new purpose and maybe even with a new name.
The suffering of dying is inevitable. It can come in the form of physical pain, and it can come in the form of spiritual pain. It can take the shape of losing one’s independence, after spending a lifetime of gradually winning a modicum of control over one’s own life. The deepest human suffering is seen, as a person realizes that he or she is losing the connection to all of the attachments of a lifetime, from the smell of morning coffee, to the intimate sharing with a spouse, to the graduation of a granddaughter from college. Suffering can be seen in the fear of anticipation as everything in the known world dissolves and begins to disappear exposing the great darkness of the radically unknown. These are the inevitable sufferings that death thrusts upon us.
Nancy Wood, a poet who lives at Taos Pueblo uses the four seasons of the year as her image in talking about death:
You shall ask
What good are dead leaves
And I will tell you
They nourish the sore earth.
You shall ask
What reason is there for winter
And I will tell you
To bring about new leaves.
You shall ask
Why are the leaves so green
And I will tell you
Because they are rich with life.
You shall ask
Why must summer end
And I will tell you
So that the leaves can die.
“What good are dead leaves?” “They nourish the sore earth.” Life goes on, dying and living, two phases of one process.
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The great religions suggest ways we can begin our preparation for death through practices of reflection, contemplation and meditation, approaching death directly rather than denying its reality. A Tibetan monk was asked why he spent so much time contemplating death. He responded, “I practice dying so I will know how to live.” This has been the attitude of all religious contemplatives and mystics, regardless of their specific religious traditions.
But in addition to the inevitable suffering that accompanies dying, there are other things which people commonly suffer, which may divert them from the more important work of attending to the inevitable suffering. These are really unnecessary sufferings because they can usually be taken care of long before the time of receiving a terminal diagnosis. Unnecessary Suffering is sometimes caused by a simple lack of knowledge. I continue to be surprised to find people who do not know about hospice, what it is and what it provides for services.
Many people may also endure physical and emotional pain because they do not realize that most pain can be controlled by competent management of medications.
Perhaps the most tragic of unnecessary sufferings concerns broken relationships and the failure to have made some reconciliation or to have come to an acceptance that reconciliation is not possible in this life. In hospice work, life review with patients sometimes reveals painful unfinished business with parents, siblings, children, or former friends. For years people have carried the anguish of resentments and betrayals. Sometimes they are not open to any attempt at reconciliation but still carry the anger and hurt as though the rupture happened yesterday. It may be possible to help them talk about it and consciously decide to accept the end of that relationship and lay down the burden they have been carrying.
In other situations reconciliation may be possible and can be facilitated by bringing the people together face to face, by phone, or if one has died, by making emotional contact and asking forgiveness and offering it in return. Would that each of us might do a periodic review of our relationships, attend to any unfinished business, exchanging forgiveness where necessary, and set our spirit free from guilt and resentment. Anyone who has worked with the dying has seen instances where unresolved relationships have prolonged the dying process and made it more difficult.
So there is an inevitable suffering that any loss brings, including death. No matter what the loss and when it happens in life, we are forced to work through the painful process of letting go and moving on to begin to live without what had been such an integral part of our lives. And there is the unnecessary suffering brought about by:
- a lack of knowledge about resources we might have searched out;
- treatment options we might have asked about at the beginning and made our choices known;
- and broken relationships we might have brought to closure.
The more we understand dying and living as the two parallel processes that constitute life, the more we will do the necessary work of grief and suffering, throughout the life span, as we experience recurring losses. The more practiced we become in dealing with the “little deaths” as they come to us, the more ready and able we will be to face into the inevitable suffering of the “big death”. If we have done our grief work at each life stage, we will be less encumbered with ungrieved loss and freer to give our energy to the inevitable suffering that comes with the physical death of our bodies. But suffering is never easy and it is always an open question whether we can marshal the inner resources to let go of everything we have ever held on to.
//
Most people find, at least in the “little deaths” that happen throughout life, that slowly, almost imperceptibly, they find themselves moving. Not that they get over it or out of it. But rather they learn to live with it. They learn how to breathe again. They learn how to move again. They learn how to see again. So that on this side of the “big death,” in the lesser deaths that we all have experienced, most people survive.
And many people do more than survive. Something happens to them in the process of letting go that transforms the suffering. For some it’s a quietness that comes over them in the midst of stormy grief. Perhaps that is what is meant by the biblical promise of “the peace that passes understanding.” For some who have cared for a loved one in their dying, I’ve heard them say that it was the hardest and most painful thing they have ever done. And they go on to say they would not want to have missed it. They feel somehow enriched by it, as though they had touched something in themselves and the other that was more enduringly real than death; almost as though they had been standing so close to the edge of this life that they could see through the veil and catch a glimpse of the next life.
So most survive grief’s suffering and for many there is some kind of alchemy that transforms the suffering into a profound and meaningful experience that both enriches and deepens their life.
Those who survive a great grief deserve to take pride in their achievement. Indeed, they have followed the Way of the Cougar. Those who have found their suffering transformed into great meaningfulness, understandably feel gratitude for having received an unexpected gift and blessing. There is yet one further possibility that I have seen happen for some. And that is that the suffering is not only transformed but is transcended. The suffering itself becomes the source of healing for others and fulfillment for oneself.
//
You’ve seen people whose suffering has given them a special sensitivity which they use to help and heal others who suffer. It’s as though they have become part of the healing energy of the universe — the archetype of the Wounded Healer whose purpose in life is to share this healing energy with those who need it.
I have taken the title of this essay from the poem (below) by the German poet Rilke. In his suffering and feeling small he cries out to God and asks him to enter into his pain to transform it. And then in one of the most daring lines in all literature Rilke offers God the opportunity to come to dwell within him in order to learn what human suffering feels like.
It is possible I am pushing
through solid rock,
like the vein of ore
encased, alone.
I am such a long way in
I can see no way through and no space.
Everything is close to my face
and everything close to my face is stone.
I don’t have much knowledge yet in grief,
so this darkness makes me feel small.
You (God), be the Master;
Make yourself fierce; break in.
And then your great transforming will happen to me
And my great grief cry will happen to you.
The mystics in all religions have seen union with the Divine as the spiritual goal of human consciousness. One of the early Christian mystics is quoted as saying, “God became human so that humans might become Divine.” Rilke saw the purpose of human life as collaboration with God in expanding the knowledge and wisdom of the universe: “Inside human beings is where God learns,” is the way he put it in another poem, “Just As The Winged Energy of Delight.”
Surviving the suffering of letting go of all the things we have held on to is an important achievement. More important is the transformation of suffering into the wisdom that enables us to place our trust in God rather than in things — any things. And most important is the transcendence of suffering in which the Wounded Healers collaborate with God in the healing of the universe.
And in this life we get to choose what our goal will be.
A concluding word from Rilke:
Once for each thing. Just once; no more.
And we too, just once. And never again.
But to have been this once: to have been
at one with the earth,
seems beyond undoing.
— Rilke
That’s transcendence — “beyond undoing”.
Follow your muse to better health and well being…
It’s Never Too Late: Creativity in Later Life by Janice Blanchard
Janice Blanchard, MSPH, is a gerontologist and aging advocate. She serves on the executive board of the Denver Commission on Aging, the Denver OWL, and as a consultant for several national organizations, including the National Center for Creative Aging and Second Journey. Blanchard writes and speaks on numerous topics, including spirituality; arts, humanities and creativity; ritual; life narratives; community and housing options; ethics and values; and technology use in aging and disabled populations. This article has been excerpted from the original that appeared in CSA Journal (March 2005) “It’s Never Too Late: Creativity in Later Life.”
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There IS a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the
creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love.
When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.
— Sophia Loren
The pursuit of one’s dreams, the desire for artistic expression, and the pinnacle of creativity are concepts most people associate with youth. A growing body of research, however, shows that creative potential is not the unique domain of the young or middle-aged. In fact, the third age (65 years and older) offers many people their greatest opportunity to excel.
Simply defined, creativity is bringing something new into existence — be it a product, process, new idea, or new way of looking at the world. That creativity exists at all in later life challenges popular thought; that it can thrive in the golden years is revolutionary thinking. Negative associations between aging and creativity are widespread and ingrained in our society in beliefs — “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”
According to Gene Cohen, author of The Creative Age: Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life, creativity plays an important role in healthy aging. Preliminary findings in Cohen’s new national study demonstrate that seniors actively engaged in creative activities have significantly better overall mental and physical health, including fewer falls and doctor’s visits; less use of medications; fewer vision problems; less loneliness and depression; and an increased level of involvement in other activities.
//
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
— Albert Einstein
Creativity in Later Life
Most people think of creativity in the artistic sense — painting, music, dance, and so on. But creativity is also an element essential to most other fields, for example, biology, chemistry, and mathematics. Moreover, creative thinking is a necessary part of everyday life: it enhances our life enjoyment and provides the inspiration to problem-solve. Cohen believes that the ability to create is one of the key elements of our humanity; it exists in everyone, at every age, regardless of how much or little it is used or recognized.
He distinguishes three different ways and times in which aging and creativity intersect to provide new opportunities for personal growth and creative expression:
1) Creativity that begins and blossoms in later life
2) Creativity that continues as a lifelong pursuit, whether as a continuation in a particularly field, or that changes and takes a new form of expression
3) Creativity that develops as a response to adversity and loss.
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It’s never too late to be what you might have been.
— George Eliot
Late Bloomers
We call the flowering plants that reach their peak only late in the growing season late bloomers. Often these plants do not receive quite enough sun or nourishment. Then one day in late summer, they begin to blossom, one beautiful flower after another, often continuing well into autumn.
Among people, late bloomers are those individuals who (re)discover their creative spirits late in life — often in the face of adversity — and flourish as a result. As a society, we are fascinated and charmed by late-life bloomers.
Anna Mary “Grandma” Moses (1860-1961) had an interest in art when she was young, but her mother encouraged more practical activities. At age 27, she married a farmer, settled down on a farm, and birthed 10 children (5 died in infancy), which she went on to raise. She only returned to art in her late 70’s. A few years later, her paintings — depicting idealized rural life — and her modest, down-to-earth personality captivated the American public. When Grandma Moses died at the age of 101, she had completed more than 1600 paintings and earned an international reputation for her work.
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My breakthrough came very late in life, really only starting
when I was fifty years old. But at that time I felt as though
I had the strength for new deeds and ideas.
— Hans Hofmann
Masters and Lifetime Achievers
Some people discover their talents early in life and remain creatively productive all their lives, albeit not always in the same style or even the same field. A surprising number live well into old age, many creating some of their best and most distinctive works in their elder years.
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Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents
that would otherwise have lain dormant.
— Horace
Out of Adversity Comes Creativity
If necessity is the mother of invention then one could say that adversity is the mother of creativity. Adversity is often the unexpected visitor. Unforeseen accidents, illness, death, or other significant losses can push us to our limits of endurance. Yet even out of the most bitter and terrible times, we can overcome hardship and despair by creative engagement.
//
You see things: and say “Why?” But I dream things
that never were: and say “why not?”
— George Bernard Shaw
A Time to Flourish
Creativity is a lifelong gift — it is never too early or too late to tap into this renewable resource that resides within each of us, whether to enhance our selves or our businesses. Age often brings with it more free time to create; fewer familial and social obligations; a lessening of inhibitions and fears; and heightens a sense of urgency: if not now, when?
The benefits of creativity in later life are numerous (Cohen, 2000). First, it improves mental and emotional health — creativity produces a fresh perspective, strengthens our morale, improves our sense of well-being, and makes us more emotionally resilient to life’s adversities and losses. Second, creativity enhances our physical health. Creative expression makes us feel better and improves our outlook, which in turn provides a beneficial effect to our immune systems and general physical health. Third, creativity enriches relationships with family and friends. Finally, creativity provides a legacy. The example you set to stay intellectually active, socially involved and creatively engaged will have a positive affect on the younger people around you.
Want a Good Bedtime Story? by Pat Samples, MA, MFA
Editor’s note: The author is a writer, speaker, and transformational educator. Her forthcoming book, Body Odyssey: Lessons from the Bones and Belly (available from Itasca Books in October 2005), offers a new view of the aging body as a remarkable resource filled with stories we can learn from. Samples is the author of six other books, including Daily Comforts for Caregivers and Self-Care for Caregivers: A Twelve Step Approach. Pat Samples frequently speaks and gives workshops on aging, caregiving, body wisdom, and inspired living.
Our bodies are a great source of stories. Hidden in our muscles and corpuscles is a record of all our experiences and what we have made of them – the stories of our lives. Indeed, our bodies have been shaped, in part, by these stories. If we’ve been beaten down often enough, physically or otherwise, our chest may have a caved-in tendency or it may stick out in perpetual defiance. If we’ve “held our tongue” like we were taught in childhood, we may experience TMJ — facial pain caused by temperomandubular joint dysfunction — in our later years. If “hurry up” was our family’s mantra, as it was in mine,” a tendency to rush and its accompanying tension may take up residence in neck and tummy muscles, and more than the needed amount of adrenaline and cortisol is regularly cued up.
This massive archive in our somatic library is available for 24-hour checkout. The longer we live, the more it seems to invite us in for a look. If we take notice of what’s on the shelf before pain and illness strike, we may find some very interesting reading. We can even rewrite some of the stories, potentially reshaping our identities and our lives. This activity is especially powerful when shared in community.
In a course I teach, called Writing Your Own Permission Slip, participants pay attention to their bodies through reflective and playful activities, then do some writing to discover the stories living there. Once on paper, the stories become artifacts, separate from the writer, and open to revision. As participants share their revelations and revisions, the community of witnesses in the class become midwives for new identities to emerge.
A retired engineer in his seventies had lost all sense of joy or pleasure. His only remaining destiny, as he saw it, was to care for his wife who had Alzheimer’s. His sober expression and stiff torso confirmed this view. A therapist had diagnosed depression. In this man’s case, his body’s hidden story of playfulness and creativity was dusty on a basement shelf in the more remote corner of his personal library. In fact, he said he had never really played in his life, because he had to do farm chores and field work from his earliest years.
In the class, we played catch and made faces and did other activities that re-activated the sensations and movement of childhood pleasures. The depressed man was slow to join in and couldn’t recall having had such experiences, but his body had not forgotten. The feeling of connecting bat to ball or of running from “Tag, you’re it” never goes away. It wasn’t long before, in an impromptu acting out of one class member’s wildest dreams of being queen of the jungle, the man with the no-play memory was on all fours at her side, purring playfully in loud tigerly style. His ability for imaginative playing with others had come back to life. By the end of the class, he had remembered the fun of playing in his school band and he wrote that he had decided it was time to take up guitar lessons. He also made plans to find a tai chi class.
Our bodies, when attended to, have much to tell us that will free us. Another student in the class, who had suffered considerable discomfort for many years from breast enhancement, found the courage to reverse the surgery. In a class writing exercise, she asked her breasts to tell her their wishes, and (with her pen) they wrote a passionate request to her to be returned to their original size. In a circle of people who were honoring the history and wisdom of their bodies, she found the support to write a new chapter in her body’s story.
My hope is that in many intentional community circles we can encourage each other to honor the stories our bodies want to tell, especially as we get older. We can harvest their wisdom for the healing of the individual and the inspiration of all.
Review: Senior Cohousing by Charles Durrett reviewed by Lisa Bolton
Senior Cohousing: A Community Approach to Independent Living by Charles Durrett
Charles Durrett has designed over thirty cohousing communities in North America and has consulted on many more around the world. His work has been featured in Time Magazine, the New York Times, the LA Times, Architecture, and a wide variety of other publications. He and his wife, Kathryn McCamant, have received numerous awards for their work including the most recent World Habitat Award, presented by the United Nations, and the Mixed Use, Mixed Income Development Award, presented jointly by the American Institute of Architects and HUD. Contact them at www.cohousingco.com/
Ten thousand Baby Boomers turn 59 each day. As they have at every other point in their progress through the life span, they are creating new choices for themselves. They are looking at the current options for “retirement living” and finding them wanting, both socially and health-wise.
Quality of life is more and more important in the last part of our life, and there is no need to live out our later years alone or lonely. Aging in place — in community — is an opportunity waiting for development; and cohousing — perhaps the most creative housing option for seniors — is one that we can make happen for us NOW, if we, as Chuck Durrett says, “Go forth and be one with [our] own future.”
Chuck Durrett, along with his wife Katie McCamant, popularized the Danish concept of cohousing in this country with the publication of their 1988 book, Cohousing: A Contemporary Approach to Housing Ourselves. In his new book, Senior Cohousing: A Community Approach to Independent Living, Durrett describes the new trend in Denmark, where 20 of the last 25 cohousing projects have been senior cohousing. But Durrett not only writes about cohousing; he and his wife eat, drink, and sleep it: their own personal housing of choice. Moreover, the two — through their firm, McCamant and Durrett — have been directly involved in the design and development of over 38 cohousing communities across the U.S.
Readers unfamiliar with the general concept of cohousing are given a quick introduction to its six components. (The last distinguishing characteristic — “separate income sources” — differentiates cohousing from communes with which the term is often mistakenly confused.)
Addressing the question, why senior as opposed to multigenerational cohousing, Durrett covers the differences between the two and elucidates the advantages for seniors of having a community specifically designed to focus on their needs, interests, and concerns. The architecture and design considerations take into account the specific needs of seniors. For example, the common house may include one or more guest suites in case of need for a care worker to live there temporarily.
Durrett provides a proven recipe, refined from 20 years of increasingly successful experience in Denmark, guaranteed to move the project along quickly. During the feasibility phase — “Do we have a project?” — a core group begins assessing local sites, municipal support, and financing options. During the information phase, a public meeting and follow-up seminar help “spread the word” to potential new residents. The developer and/or architect are also contacted, and the expanding group works to define their expectations.
During the more structured discussions and workshops of Study Group I, the group defines its needs and goals, including the project’s economic aspects, social structure, mutual responsibilities, and decision-making protocols. Potential sites are identified, ownership types described and decided upon, and conclusions described in a report. During this phase, members of the group learn how to work cooperatively with each other.
During Study Group II, the group — now consisting of those who will actually move into the completed community — make final architectural decisions relating to the site plan, common house, universal features of the individual units, and the design of the individual features within the house types. Then a building contractor is hired, financing secure, and ground is broken and construction begins.
The last phase, Study Group III, may be the most critical of the five. Here all after-move-in policies must be resolved. Discussions and decisions about agreements are made, the process of taking in new residents is decided upon, policies are established (e.g. for common meals, pets, who takes care of whom and what), and methods for taking over vacancies are codified.
Copious floor plans and photographs allow the reader to see the many possibilities open to anyone considering cohousing. The financial issues discussed include those involving lending institutions as well as those within the investing group such as setting the building budget and setting the group’s economic policies. An excellent appendix details myriad features of access-friendly design of particular importance to seniors.
Durrett’s book provides an especially good discussion of the issue of aging within the cohousing community. He cautions that basic co-care issues — including what rules related to the age and health of potential new residents are to apply — need to be resolved in advance of move-in. Some “co-care burdens” are a natural, normal part of everyday life. You pick up your neighbor’s prescription at the pharmacy when you pick up your own; you carry a meal over to a friend who has been ill. However, the group will undoubtedly want to hammer out understandings for tasks that go beyond the everyday, those that are more properly described as nursing care. “It’s about boundaries,” Durrett says, pointing out that people who live in cohousing must give themselves permission to say No. “And they generally learn to do so.”
This book is a must-read for anyone over 50 unhappy with the limited menu of residential possibilities currently available. It is easy to read, highlights all the major issues one needs to anticipate, and gives clear how-to-do-it guidelines to a group wanting to take charge of their own housing future. It tackles problems that any group will undoubtedly face and gives helpful solutions, making the often daunting task of creating a cohousing community seem “do-able.” It is very inspiring testament to growing old “in community.”