Becoming Fool of Love: Q-topia

"We don't want a piece of the pie, we want the whole bakery."

Tachales Kunsthaus

I just spent a gorgeous day on the outskirt of a tiny little village, which is located an hour northeast of Berlin. I had been planning this visit to the countryside for a little while. I woke up after not sleeping so long and so well, and part of me would have gladly stayed in to rest (and do some laundry!), but a greater part knew that there was a reason I was going.

So far I have had the chance to hang out and chat with a good amount of hold time squatters as well as a few Berliners who are part of this thriving "group living" movement; but this particular community is doing it in somewhat of a different way.

I met G. about a month ago. She had come to Berlin for the weekend to take part in a casual gathering for women and lesbians to learn and practice acrobatics together. G. and I didn't get much time to talk back then, because she was in a rush to go pick her children. Still, it only took a minute to realize we both came from America (meaning the continent, of course).

In ten minutes, I learned that she has just moved to the area, from Prague where she had lived for the last twenty years. She told me she now lives on a big plot of land, in an old boarding school that she and seven other people have bought together, "to live under anarchist principles." "There is a lot of work to do, but we're very excited about this," she had added. "You should come visit us if you have the time."

"Really?" I had answered with certain dose of … awe. "Well, I would love to help with some of the work if I can!"

So the connection was made. And over the following weeks my new friend was impressively good at keeping in touch and making sure I could come check out her community's project. So today came, and I took the train out into the German countryside…

Falkenberg Mark Train Station

She picked me up at the train station. We greeted each other, and as she began to drive she pointed out: "The man and woman who live in this big building here (the station) apparently own five small train stations like this!"
Really?
On the way she stopped by the only [little] store to get some cooking oil, but for some strange reason it was closed, so we went on to the house.

The house: a former communist boarding school that was abandoned for the past decade. "There is one other big building, in the back! It needs to be fixed," she quickly said, "but it's beautiful."

I could so immediately tell, or rather confirm, how much all of this meant to my new friend. "I will show you later."

She led me inside the premises… In the kitchen, I met three of her companeras. Indeed queer looking, for the most part. Except for G., there were also all German women. Well... "biological" women I should say, because several of them actually identify as genderqueer or gender-fluid. Besides, I should note that the project welcomes people of all genders, including men.

(Note: I feel that I don't often address the topic of gender queer-ness, even though it is actually a bit part of my life.)

We made coffee and sat around the kitchen table to chat for a bit. Somebody came in: "Did such-and-such already talk to you? Is it okay with you that we cut the tree?" They were talking about a medium-sized tree, out in the front. G. explained to me that these two women were "tree killers" (irony intended) by trade, that is, they are environmentalists and take care of diseased tree-individuals. "And they also work as "pine cone pickers.. or harvesters. Apparently these things are very valuable to growers. So they climb all the way to the top of pine trees to collect them and sell them."

She was happy and eager to share the details of the situation: "We shared all the work there is to do, learning from another as we go." Then, she underlined: "This is a shared economy, which means it's a huge deal."

"Yeah.. it's pretty much like being married to seven people at the same time," I said.

"Exactly," she smiled.

There are about a dozen rooms on the second floor of the building, but each single one of them is in a state of total abandonment and in need of solid repair. "We only set up the electricity of this house a couple of weeks ago. Before we used a kitchen, with a woodstone, in the other house."

There are many projects in line for the years to come. First, there is the mold and the asbestos to take care of. But then... There will be a whole section of the house available for people to come and give workshops, or organize community events. There will be a small library and resource center also. One day, they will knock down that brick structure in the yard and turn it into an outdoor kitchen. They will invite the whole village to come and share in the food they will grow in their orchard and permaculture garden.

They have already organized a welcoming party for the local people to come and meet them. What they found out, is that many of them actually used to work in the school!

After the tour my friend asked if I was still interested in working a bit. She said there were a few options: we can build shelves, or clean the kitchen, or we can find something else."

"I've never built a shelf," I said, "that could be fun."

So we did. We set up the working station outside the woodshed, and proceeded to assemble… or rather, to measure and calculate angles and try to understand exactly how everything would stand together. There was no IKEA plan. We were both learning how to do this!

A meeting has been decreed to take place between three o'clock and five, so G. eventually left me to attend. And there I was: Halloween day in Germany, a human being on multicolored background, yellow and orange leaves floating gently down the trees, surrounded by silence and warm oxygen. A sound above my head: birds migrating in a divine demonstration of collective intelligence at work.

Collective intelligence at work.

There is so much more I could write about today. I could go into conversations on the challenges of community-living, because don't get me wrong: there are obviously a lot of challenges! Personalities do collide and conflicts. It is unavoidable. Fears? We all have them? How to mediate the disagreements, the power dynamics, and the streams of feelings that are generated by those. How much is one able to commit to a certain vision, and how much of a venture like that can lead people to confront themselves too.

But I cannot go into all the details. This too is a process.

I was so blissed out while doing "carpentry", that I completely forgot to take pictures of the place! Oops.. my bad. I guess we'll have to agree that our imagination each gave us a different picture!

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A few more pictures: