Happiness Hotel
When I think of my ideal community I think of the Muppets. In their movies (and I’m pretty sure in real life) they live together in big old houses or buses or hotels (in Muppet Caper, the Happiness Hotel) and make a giant ramshackle family out of a bunch of weirdos. They are imperfect and strange (really, a frog and a pig?) and they’re usually hurting each other’s feelings and messing up. But they are trying, they are Community and they are wonderful.
We’re a community at the St. Mary’s Episcopal Urban Intern Program house too. In the course of this year we’ve gone from a bunch of nice strangers to a bunch of still nice but way more flawed than at first glance, friends. If you’ve ever lived in intentional community you know that it’s much easier to live alone. There are clients to whom I’ve mentioned intentional community who say, “No. I’d rather keep living in my car.” I’ve learned this year that intentional community means entering into the messiness of relationships when you’re self-preservation instincts might tell you to stay away. It means instead of avoidance, you must practice constructive confrontation. It means you have to do your dishes. It means you let things go that don’t matter. It means you must compromise and you’re not always right.
But! It also means: you are loved by a group of people who are physically and emotionally close to you. You have someone to talk to when you get home from a day that may or may not have been great. You can have sweet theme parties. You can share ideas, memories, food, and resources. You will be challenged to think of people outside of yourself on a daily basis, and I believe this will make you better in all other areas of your life as well.
A couple weekends ago a few of us visited the Los Angeles Eco Village. It was inspiring and magickal, and one of the best things I took from it was that the way that the community was not judgemental, even of themselves. They were trying to do better (be more sustainable, more equitable, more self sufficient) but they were also happy with who and where they were. It made me respect my community even more. We are flawed but we are trying. Trying in this case is all you can do, because no one is going to have the perfect community. So what we are doing is admirable and I’m proud of us. To quote Fozzie’s mom in A Muppet Family Christmas (yes, that’s right), “They’re weirdos Fozzie. But, they’re nice weirdos.”
-Katie Lewis