Where We Belong (18 page)

The couple was excited to start their family and life together in their beautiful home and cozy community. Zev was busy professionally educating people across the country about cohousing, still in its infancy with just nineteen communities completed in the United States. (There are currently 120 in North America.) Step one in Zev’s approach was to correct the perception that a cohousing community is the same as a 1970s hippie commune.

“It’s the only well-known group-living model that people have heard a lot about,” he explains. “So, much of the time is explaining what cohousing is, describing it as an intentional neighborhood with private home ownership with an HOA that owns a common clubhouse. I start there because that is verbiage that people understand. And then you can start to layer in that the group is self-managed, that we make decisions a form of consensus, that we do activities together like occasional shared meals and community workdays, and then it starts to fill in for people what cohousing really is.”

Very quickly, Zev’s work changed the course of Neshama’s career. When she volunteered to help work with producers on a network television program to create a segment on cohousing, it became clear the movement needed a talented point person in PR and marketing.

“I remember speaking on the phone with one of the producers at NBC News to figure out which community they would profile, and working with the community to determine which residents wanted to be interviewed—all the things you do to make for a great story,” Neshama says. “After that, everyone just said, ‘Neshama, do it. Represent us.’ ”

Gone were the days of representing large corporations and mass-market products. Neshama became the national media contact for sustainable, environmentally responsible communities. She already had strong skills in explaining concepts, proactively working with the media, and producing material to educate people. The only challenge was how fast she needed to get up to speed on the topic.

She says, laughing, “I would say like a rocket ship!”

Neshama read all that Zev and other experts had written on the movement, and listened to him on speakerphone when he was interviewed. Within weeks, she was comfortable with tasks ranging from advising developers when they were fielding interview questions from the media to guiding group members about how to educate others about the concept. By the end of 1998, she was working daily with Zev helping to guide future residents through marketing and group dynamics programs so they could one day effectively manage environmentally conscious cohousing projects. Sustainability was now part of Neshama’s vocabulary.

“One definition of ‘sustainability’ is to look multiple generations ahead, to determine if what you do now will have a beneficial effect if repeated over and over again and throughout generations,” she explains. “The Native Americans say seven generations. Think of the seventh generation in the decision you’re making now.”

In February 1998, Zev and Neshama got married. Zev had signed a prenuptial agreement and was aware of the several million dollars Neshama had inherited. The money allowed them to comfortably work at home and be actively involved in raising their two daughters—Halonah, born in May 1998, and Zipporah, born the following May. The two-year check-in about whether to stay in Nomad never happened; both were happy.

“As soon as we had two children,” Zev says, “and some of the neighbors began to have children as well, it just became really obvious that this was a supportive and wonderful place to be and to raise a family.”

Because Neshama didn’t grow up babysitting or interacting with babies, she found immense comfort in having approachable neighbors.

“There were other parents and caring adult residents around that I could go next door to and say, ‘Here.’ ” She laughs. “I’d just hand Halonah over as a baby knowing she’d be safe. I didn’t even have to say much: ‘I need to take a shower.’ Or, ‘I need some personal time—twenty minutes.’ I could get a few minutes off versus what is often the case for new parents who don’t have any relief.”

The ages of residents and sizes of homes in Nomad were deliberately wide ranging. Single people, empty nesters, families with children, elders, and various income levels were all represented.

“That’s a piece of the social sustainability: having a diverse community,” Zev explains. “It’s more interesting, it’s a better environment for the kids to grow up in, you’ve got ways of sharing information through the wisdom of age and the youthfulness of young people.”

As Halonah and Zipporah grew, Zev and Neshama embraced the continued support from neighbors. So did the kids. Zipporah, now fifteen, remembers a day she fell while playing outside. She cut her leg and had the wind knocked out of her.

“I remember thinking,
Oh my gosh. My parents aren’t home, I’m hurt and can’t breathe
, and I was terrified,” she says. “But I opened my eyes and realized,
Wait, I’ve got eight families around me. Which house do I want to go to?
”

Neshama felt grateful to have landed within a caring group of parents who were raising children of similar ages. There was no need to pack up and drive to playdates; the kids would play together on the swings. They all shared hand-me-downs, cooking duties, and conversation in the common courtyard.

“I could say what I was feeling and then hear other parents’ viewpoints. It was free therapy,” Neshama says with a chuckle. “The kids would be playing outside and we would sit together and talk while they played. In ten minutes I felt relieved that I’d shared something that was bothering me and got really good input.”

Holiday preparations were easier, too. “At Easter, we’d all meet in the common house and color eggs together. Our family created a community Passover. One year we turned the courtyard into a graveyard for Halloween.”

The collective goal was to give and take. Zev recalls, “We had an older gentleman who was a neighbor of ours for quite a few years, and he sort of adopted the girls as a grandparent since our parents had passed away. He had the girls over to read stories, played with them in the courtyard, or they went together to special events like a play or musical.”

Neshama developed a relationship with a young girl in the community who was living with her father after her parents’ divorce. She’s now sixteen.

“I’ve been like a mother to her. When she has boyfriend issues she’ll come over and talk with me about things,” Neshama says. “We share a space in each other’s lives. It’s all about the longevity of the relationships and that’s the cord that weaves a stable life together. When you’ve known people their whole lives you can count on each other.”

The most challenging transition to cohousing for Neshama was the community’s policy of consensus. Decisions that affected life in Nomad had to be agreed upon by a majority of residents. Before every important decision is made in the community, two meetings are held over the course of a month. It took Neshama awhile to realize that extensive conversations between neighbors ultimately result in a respectful process and a positive outcome.

“I felt impatient. I wanted things to move more quickly. I would think,
This decision makes sense. Let’s just do it
. But the two-meeting time frame accommodates the person who needs to process information longer. It now makes sense to me. You learn to respect the differences in peoples’ styles and become more patient,” she says. “Living in community stretches you in a good way. Zev describes cohousing as ‘the most extensive personal growth workshop you’ll ever take. And at the end of it, you get to move into a great home in a resilient neighborhood.’ ”

Neshama and Zev admit the cohousing model, like every arrangement that involves people, isn’t perfect. But when problems arise, the community’s experience with consensus and open communication is helpful.

“There’s one neighbor who when she gets upset will sometimes yell,” Neshama explains. “We had to have a conversation with her early on that shouting is not an acceptable way to speak to adults, and it’s certainly not okay to yell at children because it scares them and they don’t understand it. We created a community-wide agreement that if you’re upset, you need to walk away. When you’re calm, then it’s okay to speak with the parents or kid about what happened. You can resolve things that way in a cohousing community; you can’t always do that with people you don’t know as well.”

Eighteen years later, Nomad has grown from eighteen to thirty-one residents, ranging in age from one to seventy-four. Neshama and Zev are one of the five original households that remain; there were originally eleven.

Their daughters are now teenagers. When the girls visit friends outside Nomad, they experience the privacy of a typical suburban neighborhood. Zipporah wonders if she’ll choose to live one day with her own family in the close quarters of a cohousing setup.

“I think about it a lot,” she says. “I’ll probably go to college and then decide whether I want to live really close to people or not.”

Zipporah, Neshama, Zev, and Halonah, Boulder, 2013
(Courtesy of Neshama Abraham)

Zipporah says some of her dearest friends live in Nomad and she loves her extended family there, but the layout of the community can be trying at times. The teen would slightly tweak the orientation of the homes.

“So I could go out the front door without everyone seeing me and thinking,
She’s wearing a dress! Where is she going?
”

While Neshama enjoys having a steady flow of visitors to the house, she explains that neighbors can create a “Do Not Disturb” symbol that everyone in the community recognizes and honors.

“We use a pretty piece of fabric, and when it covers the glass in the top half of the door, that means ‘come back later.’ Other households have a different symbol,” Neshama explains, “like a flag or something they display that lets people know it’s not a good time to visit.”

So much has changed for Neshama since her upbringing in the Columns. She’s proud of the loving family she and Zev have created together.

But there is also a change she’s ashamed to admit. In 2007 and 2008, the economic downturn devastated her and Zev’s cohousing consulting business; virtually all of their planned projects came to a halt. Regrettably, there was no financial net. Decades of living without a budget had depleted the family’s substantial bank account and savings. Neshama takes full responsibility for spending how she was raised—with no limits—and for not overseeing the managing of her money. If only she had taken the advice her wealthy cousin gave her after her mother, Amelia, died.

“I remember my cousin saying to me, ‘Your one job is to keep your money. Don’t worry about how much you earn, just keep and grow what you have.’ ”

So many emotions are tied to the fact that her mother worked so hard to earn the family fortune, and Neshama lost it.

“I have felt sad, regretful, disappointed, and sometimes envious of others who still have extra money. I want to cry when I think about it; I had no appreciation at the time for how much I had.”

In the last seven years, the family’s lifestyle has changed dramatically. They live on a strict budget. Halonah and Zipporah, now sixteen and fifteen, moved from private to public school. Once-lavish gifts for Hanukkah are now handmade. Neshama shops for clothes at a consignment shop.

“I have learned,” she says. “You earn a dollar and you spend it thoughtfully, or you save it.”

A silver lining around a very dark cloud is that Neshama is now teaching her daughters the lesson that escaped her.

“They are very aware of the value of money. When they walk into a store they know in advance what they want to buy and have discussed with us how much they have to spend. Both girls work and are responsible and budget conscious. They’re growing up in a much different environment where they’re developing a good sense of how to earn, save, and appropriately spend money. Plus, we’ve also taught them the more important value of a healthy and loving home life.”

Despite the monetary loss, Neshama says she has gained infinitely more in her fifty-four years. She has nurtured a solid relationship with her daughters, transitioned to a fulfilling professional life, and loves and respects even more the man who caught her eye from across the dance floor.

“Zev changed my life much for the better. I believe I would have stayed inwardly lonely. I now feel fulfilled professionally by using my communication skills to educate people about sustainable options and to help protect the environment. I would likely have continued on my New York rat-race lifestyle, pushing myself constantly. I wouldn’t have connected with nature or found the quiet within or around me. To have ended up here in community within a nurturing home and supportive neighborhood is a blessing. The richness is everybody around me.”

Neshama lives just five minutes from where she sat on a swing, marveled at the Rockies, and envisioned a more meaningful life.

The universe, apparently, was listening.