COMMON ROOM

I’m not exactly sure when I first came across LIFE’s now-famous photo of off-the-grid communal living in the 1960s, but I must have been in about 5th grade.

I had no idea what either “hippie” or “commune” meant, so I did what one does: I asked my mum.

I don’t remember her answer exactly. I’m sure she gave me the 15,000-foot overview, and I suspect the word “dirty” made an appearance. A woman of her social ranking could not be expected to understand—let alone endorse—the idea of people heading off into the woods to live in cobbled-together shelters, half-clothed, bug-bitten, and cheerfully eating whatever survived the garden.

Naturally, I was immediately taken with the idea.

Even then, I think what I wanted wasn’t a commune so much as permission—but I didn’t have that language yet. What I had was a plan.

Almost immediately, I decided that my commune would be a wee bit different. Not quite the neat rows of little-boxes-made-of-ticky-tacky suburban life I knew—but also not a scatter of sticks, tarps, and wishful thinking. What I envisioned was a large house somewhere deep in the woods—accessible, but not obvious—surrounded by what we would now call tiny houses (though such a term didn’t exist in the late ’70s when this first took hold).

The “Mother House,” if you will, would be mostly one great big room: an industrial kitchen, a large bathroom with a giant hot tub and several showers—because while I was intrigued by the general clothing-optional lifestyle of communes, I was also practical enough to understand that folken might not always want to bathe en masse. Each tiny house, then, could have its own shower/bath combo for those so inclined.

Food would be prepared in the House, on a kind of rotating basis, and people could choose: eat together, or take a plate back to their own wee dwelling and eat in solitude.

That was the point.

The whole design hinged on a balance between Community and Solitude, depending on how one felt at any given moment.

Feeling gregarious? Head to the Mother House—eat, drink, watch TV, play games, see who’s about.

Feeling aloof? Go back to your own space—read, sleep, think.

If you wanted conversation, privacy, intimacy—you had a place for that, too.

And it mattered, deeply, that these were full dwellings set apart from the House, not just rooms down a hallway. The point was to be able to get away completely when you wanted to—to be alone without compromise. No thin walls. No shared bathroom at the end of the corridor. No incidental encounters unless you chose them.

You could be with people.

Or you could not.

And both were equally valid.

There were, admittedly, some gaps in the plan.

I wasn’t particularly keen on the idea of children running about—not in great swarms like in the photo—so I never really worked out how that would function. I suppose they could be passed around as needed; long before “it takes a village” became a common phrase, I knew that part was probably true, even if I didn’t much care for children myself.

Drugs didn’t enter into it at all. I was far too young, and my parents only rarely had a rum & Coke, so the appeal of mind-altering substances wasn’t even on my radar. If cooperating with Da’ Maaaan meant having things like running water, electricity, sewage, and mail delivery, then so be it.

What I wanted wasn’t rebellion. It was choice.

Specifically, the ability to say, politely and without consequence: “I really don’t want to be around anyone right now.” —and to have that be accepted.

Such things were (are?) generally not afforded to children.

In school, we were all together in one great fishbowl of a room, all day long, and if someone decided to come along and yank your chain, they had pretty much free rein to do so. One could not, for example, say, “I’d like to go sit in the closet by myself and be away from the rest of you cakesniffers,” and expect that request to be honored.

This is why, in 5th grade, when I was on safety patrol for the longest outdoor shift, I would sometimes opt instead to sit in the cafeteria and drink hot chocolate. Being alone in a large, empty room was preferable to being out among the noise and chaos of recess—but that’s a story for another day.

Even at home, there were times I didn’t want to eat dinner with my own family, and I couldn’t understand why this was considered rude. I didn’t want conversation. I didn’t want small talk. I wanted to eat quietly, by myself.

At large family gatherings—Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter—I found myself withdrawing at regular intervals, stepping outside or slipping into an empty room just to recalibrate.

As an adult, not much has changed. In the fall, especially, as holidays approach and we’re all encouraged to gather, to celebrate, to show goodwill—my instinct tends to run in the opposite direction. Not out of dislike, nor even discomfort, but out of a need that feels just as real as hunger or sleep.

As the meme says: “I’m staying in today; it’s too peopley out there.”

Even among those I love.

It occurs to me now that I was never trying to build a commune at all. I was trying to build a place where solitude wasn’t something you had to apologize for. A place where stepping away didn’t need to be explained.

A place where the door could close— and that, too, would be understood.