The wood and stone house sat at the end of the road and in it arose questions of whether to ever set off on the road again. Inside there was a meeting of minds; surprising, and inspiring when your own has been derided and scorned for expressing the same sentiments for years. Around the house there was contact with a present that itself has strong contact with the past. It was set in a community that was shrunk to a couple of households, the rest, just holiday homes, but the few, a still strong, vibrant community, tighter for its shared commodities and ideas.
It was an easy move into daily living with four. Each online, quietly working, all sharing cooking, cleaning, shopping. Seamless working, living and leisure, but the ease prompted questions of misdirection. Working on a project with a degree of self-sufficiency, working creatively and productively to make a living environment as efficient as possible. Working with hands that usually and vacuously type in return for coin, instead, learning new skills and all of them practical. All wholly positive yes, but should the time, effort and finances have been poured out on, and possibly ultimately exhausted by, the truck and the trip? Would a plot of land and a ruin to rebuild as a home have been a better option? After all, that is the ultimate desire and intention.
Whether ill-spent or not, if opportunity or finance emerge in the future for shared settlement and community, then this lesson has taught that it would be a good choice and one to be seized. Yet to settle is later, movement is now. And on we go. The stop, as tempting as permanent, is temporary. Though hard to leave, this fast-forged family of friends has given a new strength of purpose. It is to see other rural communities, co-operatives, communes, families, villages and hamlets. To see them and to learn from them, how people have lived and do live together in mutually reliant groups. To find them throughout our travels and to learn from them all.
