The Commune

I've always wanted to live in a commune. I picture warm kitchen scenes where we are all drinking wine (ok, it would be dinnertime, not breakfast) and creating delicious, healthy meals. Everybody pitching in and helping wherever the need is...repairs, planting the organic garden. Stimulating conversations, NPR on the radio...sigh. Then I realize that apart from having people in the same house all day, we pretty much have this.

I reflect back to Anne B who called me the day she heard I was sick and said "Bring a pot to your front door", which I did. She met me there, poured the roasted veggie chicken soup from her pot to mine (so I wouldn't have to wash and return her pot). The memory of that soup still makes me salivate. Then there is Marty, who helped nail some board back onto my cupboards...I probably could have done it, but it really was more complicated, and involved laying on the ground nailing upside down. Awkward. Or the other day when I put our Sunday New York Times in a bag after reading it and left it on Tim and Suzanne's doorstep. I came home later to see the same bag on my doorstep with the LA Times in it. Smile. There have been too many dinners at the Macaluso's with friends to mention, and as many last minute calls for help picking up kids from school. I love this place. My happy place.

Oh, and the organic garden!! We had someone else plant it! Hahaha! Really! A group of nine families pitched in to join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) in Camarillo called the McGrath Farms. We paid for a "season" of 15 weeks, and every Tuesday one of the families will drive to the Farm to pick up nine boxes packed with organic produce. The boxes are then dropped by the Mead's house, where we can pick them up at our leisure. We support our local farmer and we get the most amazing box of veggies, strawberries and herbs...sometimes even flowers!

So, I won't go into detailed discussion about the word community being a form of commune. Let's just say we feel pretty lucky to be here.