Twin Oaks Exit Letter
From NomadicScribe
TWIN OAKS EXIT LETTER
Benjamin Bradley
Greetings groovy Twin Oakers! I was in the Oct. 23-Nov. 2nd visitor group and I am applying for membership. After my road trip/community tour concludes in December I will take some time for personal reflection and other introspective shit like that. At that point, I'll make a decision about what I want to do next year. At this point I'm heavily leaning towards moving into a community, but there are also other options I'm considering. I've been thinking about going to a wilderness awareness school and feel it might be difficult to raise the money for that if I were already living at TO. Depending on the resources I have and the opportunities available, I may decide to move in as soon as January, or wait as long as a year and a half - after doing another visitor period, of course.
The three week visitor period here has been great. I felt like the labor quota was weighing on me the second week; I didn't have trouble making quota, but I did feel like I was thinking about work the whole time. The third week was a lot easier and I felt like I hardly thought about it at all. The friends and parties have been wonderful and I feel like I've really connected with a couple people. The visitor group in Aurora has been fantastic, and I realize that I won't have the same peer support group if/when I move back, but hopefully the friends I've made will help me out in that regard.
The software business that's starting up is interesting - to see how it could be integrated into a varied Twin Oaks work schedule along with other physical labor like garden and tofu hut shifts. I would put in my share of cleaning and enjoy cooking occasionally. I also like doing random fixits like building maintenance and bike repairs. I love learning new things and think that one of the advantages of living at Twin Oaks is that over time, I'd have opportunities to try out new things. Twin Oaks' movement support is encouraging and I would like to get involved in some activist work, although the specific area would depend on what other interest there is within the community. I'm also interested in the big-picture planning that goes on at TO and over time, would probably get more involved in it as I felt appropriate. My favorite thing about living in community, and I've felt this especially at TO, is that I feel like we're all on the same page - but more than that - we're in the same book.
The main things that have drawn me to Twin Oaks are the thriving social scene and the diversity of industry here. I feel like working at Twin Oaks would be a dream job - the amazing flexibility of one's own schedule and (to a large degree) the type of work one does. I realize it will take some time (a year or two) to get into the labor scene I want. I feel like living at Twin Oaks would teach me a lot about interpersonal issues and how I deal with them. I know that I would run into situations where my patience is tested and I will have to practice what I know or learn something new to deal with it. Make new friends and learn something new about myself - that's a good life.
