Instead of the front porch, today I am writing from the hammock. Nutmeg is lazing on the grass. Amber has decorated the harvest table with flowers and place-mats and the benches with blankets. I am getting ready to fire up the firebowl and grill burgers for Spare Key's weekly potluck.

Behind me on the porch an audacious plant grows from a crack in the caulking. We noticed it weeks ago, and we left it there. It has grown 18 inches, a slender green stalk straight toward the sky. I have no idea how it got there, or what it is, or how its roots are finding what they need in the bowels of my front porch. But I like what it's doing.

Just as a seed had thrived in calking and concrete, an intentional community has taken root in our own front yards.

After much soul-searching and debating of options, Amber and I have decided to stay in Springfield for the long term--to "hunker down" as one of my friends recently put it. We made this decision not least because of the unprecedented spirit of community we enjoy here. Having finally made a decision to settle, I can't tell you how liberating it is to just. be. present.

We are excited to participate in and contribute to what is happening in Springfield, a place that I know to be full of cultural creatives, high functioning idealists, and crusaders of every stripe. A metaphorical cloud of paper lanterns exists above Springfield, and I look forward to adding my own tiny lantern to the others that already illuminate the landscape.

The next stage is to find a particular region, a particular neighborhood, a particular community, a particular house or houses. We will find this when we find it. But wherever it may be and whenever we may find it, I hope I let nothing distract me in the meantime from just. being. present.


My View From the Front Porch: May 2015, Jan 2015, Aug 2014
jayhoward@gmail.com

In the Summer of 2012 Amber and I moved to Springfield, and right away we met with some friends at a breakfast cafe to talk about putting together an intentional community. We had a vision of what it could be like. As I reflect on that fateful breakfast several years later, I am happy to report that vision is a reality. In fact, the community that is now called Spare Key has far exceeded my hopes and expanded my vision.

We were looking for radical community. That is to say, a community that shared things. Our lives, our hopes, our day-to-day. We did not want to live in the same house with friends as we had successfully done in the past. We weren't looking for anything super immersive. We just wanted meaningful relationships with people that went beyond once-a-week interactions. And even that, in and of itself, is asking a lot. We didn't know if that kind of life would be in the cards for us at all.

As it turns out, we got much more than we asked. While the members of Spare Key do not live geographically close to one another, the community we have managed to generate actually feels more like a neighborhood than most actual neighborhoods do.

Spare Key has taught me many things over the past few years about the concept of community. Community is an abstract term, and can mean a lot of things. But while Spare Key is a community, I have come to think of it not so much as a place, or as a mission statement, or even as an expression of any philosophy or vision. I have conceptualized community primarily in those terms in the past. But now, to me, Spare Key is first and foremost a rich network of friendships.

And that's what we wanted all along.


~~~


(Jay's View from the Front Porch, January 2015)
sparekeycommunity@gmail.com