Forgery League

There’s nothing like winter to make you appreciate spring.

Starting a list of things I’ll miss if we move out of this neighbourhood. Number one is Kensington Market. All the wacky secondhand clothing stores have their racks of colourful Stuff out on the street again, and the fruit markets have reclaimed good stretches of the sidewalk. The sound of an impromptu Saturday drum circle echoes across Dundas from the African drum shop. The Moonbean is packed, and its patio is back in full force.

Well, maybe we can get a place along Gerrard or Broadview so it’d be an easy ride from home…

We haven’t even found a house to buy and already we’re discussing what we want to do after that. More and more we’re attracted to some form of cohousing. I’ve always been attracted to the sort of community found on the Islands, for example - progressive, close-knit, homegrown, collaborative, the product of many happy accidents and acts of generosity - and wondered if it’s possible to build such a place deliberately.

In essence, I think it’s a little like the community where Sean’s Mom lives near Charlottesville, but I think I’m after something a little more compact and village-like.

As much as anything, I think it’s a kind of insurance. The challenge is this: I’m going to die. Not only that, I’m going to be old at some point. Do I want to be alone when that happens? No. I’d rather be somewhere with cool neighbours whom I trust; in a comfortable, walkable setting; with the opportunity to help one another out in all different ways - cooking, helping design a house, teaching music on the side, supporting someone who’s lost a loved one, whatever. So the idea of cohousing has really struck home (pardon) for me, as well as the writings of Christopher Alexander.

I just had a vision of our various houses as successive chambers in a nautilus… perhaps ranging from crib to room to apartment to house, each one a little bigger than the last. But not necessarily bigger in terms of space… space is for stuff, not for us. Rather, it’s more a kind of psychological sphere, at every step more integrated with whoever and whatever surrounds us.

Maybe it’s just me coming to realize that we can change the world - just not in the most obvious way. :D