Page 14 - C.A.L.L. #44 - Fall 2018

Gradually, we realized that our months of casual conversation and our weekend of focused
discussion had led us to ideas that might seem rather startling to anyone hearing them for the
first time. It was almost as if we had suddenly interrupted a polite afternoon tea by suggesting

group sex.

Our friends didn’t know how to react. “Lovely to hear from you,” one reply read, avoiding any
mention of our proposal. “Hope to see you soon.”

Okay, maybe we should have eased into it more.

Others picked up on the architecture but not so much on the community. “Really interesting
idea. We might consider it when we can’t manage the stairs any more.”

Okay, maybe we could have explained that part better. It’s not about the stairs.

Barring the unforeseen, each of us has decades of healthy living ahead of us. We don’t yet
need any physical accommodations to our living space. So, why now? Why not wait until the
stairs are too much for us? Simply put, it takes time to grow old together; it takes time to form

community.

We have seen parents and older friends reluctantly accept the move into a retirement house
full of strangers when they felt there was no other choice. But hanging on until there’s no

choice can become a trap.

I recently heard about an elderly couple still living independently while coping with disabilities.
He’s blind, she’s beginning to show signs of dementia. Together, they are fine: She can see
where they are, he can remember why they’re there. But their independence is precarious. If

either one were incapacitated, neither could function alone.

We are choosing to form community now, while we can still run up a flight of stairs, so that
later, when our steps are more tentative, we will have friends within reach.

Of course, we also have our share of the baby-boomer attitude that says, if you don’t like the
choices on offer, demand something else. Not happy with retirement homes? Fine, we’ll
reinvent them for ourselves.

However, this is not truly new, it’s a modern variation of the extended family that was common

a few generations ago. It’s a bit countercultural, in the face of the North American ideal of
independence. We’re okay with that. We have come to see interdependence as more
desirable.

So, we’re continuing to explore the idea and have created a Facebook
page, @CohousingForCreativeAging, in the hope of expanding the conversation – and,
perhaps, the community.

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