It’s 5 months since we secured the Glenorchy Centre as home to Wirksworth Housing Co-operative and it’s both felt like a blip and a lifetime. We’ve already welcomed over 150 people in to enjoy the space - from hosting musicians for a local festival; to afternoon tea with investors, friends and neighbours; to big wholesome dinners with the local queer group; to death cafes, facilitator retreats, kid’s parties and breathwork mornings.
Many people are often in awe of how quickly we built relationships with each other and found alignment in our visions, raised funds from the local community and moved in together while also juggling kids, dogs and DIY. Whereas others are eager for us to move even faster: “when are more people moving in? Have you done anything with the loft room yet? Can I host my party in the hall?” are just some of the questions I’ve had over the last few months.
So I wanted to share what it means to move at the speed of love. A velocity that can transport you into a completely different paradigm one moment, and have you grinding to a halt the next, but it’s better than standing on a steady escalator towards capitalism’s version of progress.
For me moving at the speed of love is essential in building something like this. This is more than just a house and more than just a group of friends - it’s a form of community and infrastructure that we hope will continue to sustain many generations to come. We are laying the foundations for something that we believe is transformational, and when you are trying to do that inside an extractive system that places very little value on wellbeing it’s even more important to move at a pace where we’re avoiding perpetuating harmful structures.
Here’s just some of the things that the group has been doing over the summer to move at the right pace:
Nurturing connection
One of the most beautiful things about moving in with Nick, Joni and Char is how much dedication they’ve each shown to nurturing their connections with my kids. In many environments, including a nuclear family, kids needs are so often overlooked and ignored in order to ‘get stuff done’. But the focus this summer holidays really has been about providing the kids with all the love and care they could dream of. Every time the kids create something, there is someone there to appreciate their work. When one of them wants to be loud and energetic, and the other wants to be quiet and do puzzles, there is someone there to match their energies.
What’s more is that my kids have experienced and witnessed multiple versions of good repair conversations, and learnt different ways to show care for people. In the space of a few weeks my youngest who previously struggled a lot with a form of demand avoidance, has started to freely offer to help me make shelves, carry boxes and take his plates to the kitchen.
Beyond the kids it’s been amazing to live with multiple adults that deeply share my values around relationship anarchy and demonstrating love and care to an expanded community - we’ve all prioritised connecting with and supporting the people around us this summer. And it’s clear to me that living with adults that love and care for me makes me a better partner, a better friend, a better parent, a better neighbour.
Commitments to more than just existing
We have also been spending lots of time this summer making our place more homely. As much as I joke that I don’t know what I’m looking at when the rest of the group compare aesthetic ideas, I love them all for making space and time to make our home feel loved. It is amazing to experience their commitment to making the co-op somewhere that feels beautiful and magical and homely.
The biggest and most immediate way that our space has felt homely though is through the never-ending flow of good food we cook for each other. I still cherish every moment that a hot plate of food or a cup of tea is brought to me while I’m on a work call, and even people in our wider community have been nourished by the love the group pours into feeding each other. It might seem small but so many people’s relationship with food is out of necessity to fuel them on a day where they rarely take a lunch break.
It is often a tension I notice now between my experiences and other people’s experiences - so many friends feel like they only just have enough energy to work, and everything else from preparing food to investing in relationships is exhausting and overwhelming.
The power of spaciousness
While it’s already requiring a lot of upkeep, the building we managed to purchase collectively has created this expansive feeling that I’ve never experienced before. Having the community hall means I can instantly say yes to my own community organising ideas, yes to my kids wanting people over, yes to big meals with friends and families.
What’s more is with a kid that has ADHD, the freedom to move in the way he needs to has been huge for his regulation. The 4 of us were previously in a 2-bed flat with no outdoor space - so even though we are now sharing with other people the shared spaces offer so much more freedom and creativity.
There is also a sense of spaciousness in how we relate. Lots of people I speak to ask me how I cope living with multiple people, but actually I find I can have so many more solo moments as a result. We are learning how to spend time together in a way that feels co-regulating, and how to give each other space when we need it. It’s given me the opportunity to actually reflect on and put in place some boundaries, in a way that I’ve never done before, which is allowing me to show myself and other people more love and care.
Mirrors and edges
With deep love, also comes pain, grief, and fear. This is a cycle that many people are often not aware is a thing, but it’s something I experienced when I first moved in with my nesting partner. When you finally have some of your needs met, and people start to really accept you for who you are, it can make you realise the things you might struggle with even more - and that can make it hard to keep going at the pace you might’ve been before (even if that was a pace that was burning you out.)
In addition, much like having multiple partners, living with multiple people highlights really rapidly some of your triggers and cycles. Noticing forms of dysregulation in each other and in ourselves has been a lot of the work we’ve been doing as we navigate decisions together. For instance I have a lot of unhealthy patterns around money conversations, and it takes a lot of conscious effort unravel that - and we even ran a ‘trauma-informed cobudgeting session’ together to help us do this collectively. I’m so grateful to get to experience being held to account and being held with love simultaneously.
So that’s what we’ve been up to. And of course ripping up carpets, building storage, securing grant funding for the development of our plans for the space and navigating the planning department - which is more at the pace of beaucracy (but with a dash of love to keep us going).