Backdated...

Here is a very old post that I meant to send along but never did. New one coming with updates in a day or so.

January 4th, 2010
Christmas Season
Greetings in the new year! Many, many things have happened since that last posting, what with the holidays and all. Here is a brief update on the facts, and some fun as well.

1. We moved into the house over boxing day and have since welcomed everyone home from their holiday breaks with their families. The house is remarkably calm after such a big switch, considering how difficult it is to accept change sometimes. The rooms are nice and we can sleep a little longer in the morning.
2. A new co-worker is moving in, a Dutch guy named Gawan. He is 19 and his mother is very concerned that he gets enough to eat here—I do not think that will be a problem, seeing as one of his “responsibilities” will be to attend three meals a day and be served by yours truly.
3. Another person is moving in as well, Lukas. He grew up here, and his dad already lives in Rainbow. He is taking on more responsibility with the house and will be here over night with us, which will be helpful if Jeff and I want a date night. Unlike Gawan, he already knows the house well and will not need an adjustment period.
4. Christmas was interesting. We are perhaps more tired now than we were before! Jeff and I were Mary and Joseph in the play in the barn on Christmas Eve, complete with calves which pushed out of their pen at the end of the play (and then stood in the hall, very unsure of what to do!). We had a big meal both Christmas Eve and Christmas, lots of cultural events since then, a New Years game night put on by yours truly, and now we are celebrating Three Kings and singing lots. Yikes. The weavery is calling my name.

So. We have two conflicting desires right now. The general theme of the season and holiday is rest, and we are resting. But we are also feeling the urge to get going here, and organize ourselves. The day to day stuff is old hat to us, because we have experienced most of that since October. However, there are administrative things that we are learning now, and part of that is organizing the house so that we can understand it and administer! The office needs a clean-up (overhaul?), medicine needs attention, monthly reports, and all the Christmas refuse needs to be dealt with. When we return to work on Thursday, I will be in the house cooking and doing what needs doing in the morning, and Jeff will technically be “in the house” in the afternoons. For him, that means organizing things, running errands, being nurse if someone is sick, and otherwise going to work in the garden if there is nothing here to do. Anyway, we will both have loads of time to do what needs doing here, and somehow I cannot believe that we will actually need all of that time. So we are trying to resist the urge to get moving, enjoy the relaxing time, and use the time allotted to us later.

Weather—feels like home, which is to say, incredibly cold and snowy for people here. There is an arctic air mass blah-de-blah and its cold. The irritating part of this is that there is still ice on the roads and it can be quite “slippy” in places. So the community has made the decision that none of the “villagers” should go walking about unaccompanied until further notice. Jeff and I both raised our eyebrows at that. Right now, there are two of us here and five people who are to be escorted everywhere. It is not practical, and most often not necessary. One would have to try pretty hard to slip on the path we take to and fro. So that has been annoying, but we are too-proud Minnesotans who know how to walk (and even drive!) on ice and we should remember it, so we have kept out mouths shut. Meanwhile, our people often “forget” that they need one of us with and walk to the hall alone anyway.

This reminds me. There are no inbetweener aged people here. Either you are 20 or 50, or a child of a person who chooses to live here. This is a general problem in Camphill, finding people to carry the torch if you will. Anja, our mentor here and a really lovely woman, has been making sideways comments about us staying on for life here. Beyond us, there is one guy in his 20s like us who may stick around in community for a while, but that’s it. Stagnataion.

Well, that is all for now. Happy winter!