Communard Interview #4: Amanda

Amanda is a young visitor to the Acorn Community who is going through the process to become a provisional member.  She is an artist, a first time gardener, and a newcomer to community life.

Raven:  What got you interested in living in community and how did you find Acorn?

Amanda: I didn’t know about communities until I learned about them through my partner who learned of them through his friends. We were interested in homesteading and learning how to grow our own crops. We actually wanted to do something like WWOOFing or something to teach us farming and community just kind of fell in line with those same aspects. We were just going to try it out.  We weren’t really thinking of becoming members. We just wanted to learn for ourselves but once we got here and saw how everyone works together, we realized it would be a lot harder to do that on our own. We decided that we wanted to utilize people working together and just become part of the community instead of pulling back and being by ourselves on a big piece of property.

Raven: Can you tell me about the process of becoming a member at Acorn?

Amanda: Once you express interest in becoming a member, you become a “member candidate”. You have to sit down with each member and have a one-on-one talk with them where they get to express any concerns they may have.  This is called doing clearnesses.  They get to know you a little bit better. They get to share their side of community life so you also get to know them better.  They try to show you what community looks like to them and how they feel this place runs to see if you can fit into the groove. I am still in the membership candidate process but once you finish all your clearnesses with each member, you become a provisional member. Then you have another few sets of clearnesses and they vote on whether they would like you to stay or they would rather you not stay.  After about a year, you can become a full member, once your final round of clearnesses is complete.

Raven: What do you like best about communal living and what do you find most challenging?

Amanda:  I really enjoy getting to make my own schedule and getting to work in the areas that I want to work on the hours that I want to work.  If I decide I don’t want to be awake in the daytime anymore, I can work all night, if that’s what I want. I like that we have big community dinners where people work to make huge meals to feed everyone and then we all sit down and talk about our day and laugh and joke.  After that we may have our night on our own or we may have a movie night.  I just like the family aspect of it.  It feels very familiar, like home, and getting a whole new set of friends is really fun. 

What I find most challenging is figuring out who I am once all the stressors of life have been taken away. I don’t have to worry about my job, I don’t have to worry about my house or my car. So now it’s nothing but the bare bones of who I am. I’ve never had to face that before so I’m kind of lost a little bit and trying to figure out who I am for the first time at 30 years old and it’s really interesting. It’s really scary but I know in the end the result is going to be amazing.

Raven: What advice would you give to folks looking to live in community?  What things didn’t you know when you started looking?

Amanda:  I think places like intentional communities can seem like an easy way out.  If you don’t like working nine-to-five or don’t like, you know X Y and Z, you might think, I’m just going to run away from the society and enjoy living in one of these communes, but it’s not as easy as that. I feel like it could be worth it but it’s definitely not easy.  

Like I said before, there’s a lot of things you face for the first time when you come to community.  There’s a lot of internal things you have to kind of figure out and realign and that process can be confusing and painful. There can be a whole list of issues and you have to kind of figure out how to express yourself in a healthy way without taking your anger and confusion and projecting it. 

You have to be ready to live with a lot of people.  It seems like an easy concept on the surface but everyone has their own little personalities and everyone’s different. Getting to know how each person works individually is a fun and long process. 

In addition, it’s a business and you have to make yourself accountable to show up every day and say I’m going to work my hours and I’m going to be a part of the business and I’m going to help my fellow members of the community because everything you do affects everyone else.  You may not realize that but if you slack off or decide you don’t really want to do this, it falls onto someone else.   So it’s about doing your part and fitting into the puzzle.  It’s about lifting everyone else up with you and taking some of the weight off other people. 

It’s really about relationships and how we can build each other up and help each other. It’s all so tightly tied together.  You can’t have the business without the garden and you can’t have the garden without the people and you can’t have the people without the business. Everything in community life is important.  It’s not just what you want to get out of it  but you have to hold yourself emotionally accountable. 

It’s easy to be selfish in a place like this because everyone here wants you to express yourself and do the things that you want.  You can have huge art night parties and learn hobbies and stuff. It’s easy to get swept away with all the encouragement and just be selfish and focus on yourself. But you need to share your time. You have to be on top of that because you don’t have someone telling you that you have to go to work today and you have to do this or else you’re going to lose your house.  You have to be the one who’s doing those things and you have to be in charge of your own accountability.

Raven: Thank you.  This has been a great interview.   Is there anything else you’d like to share with Commune Life readers?

Amanda:  I think when you’re first looking into community life, you have a set of goals that you want to accomplish in mind. I think the best thing to do is just jump into the cold water and take the chance.  You never really know what these places are actually like until you get here.  There’s no way of knowing cuz it’s individual. Everyone takes something away differently. You just have to put yourself out there.  If this is something that you’re really interested in doing, take the chance to do it.  If this community isn’t right for you then maybe another community will be right for you. Explore and look around and try different things before deciding maybe this isn’t for you. If there’s anything holding you back or making you scared, just try and let it go. Even if it isn’t for you, you will probably learn a lot about yourself and about your hobbies and your goals. So even if you don’t end up staying at a community, I feel like it’s still worth it to go there and try and grow yourself.