transition2

“All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.” --  Leo Tolstoy

Here's one way (of many I could mention) that Transition Lab is already a success story in my book, though the program -- and my acquaintance with it -- are still young.  Six days ago, I arrived in a town where I'd never spent more than the few minutes it took to drive through on the way to someplace else.  I didn't know anybody.  I had no job, very little money, and no local information other than the address of the best local coffee shop I'd looked up online, which turned out to have gone out of business.  If I'd had nothing more than first impressions to go on (see previous post), I'd probably have kept right on driving.  But I did have two points of contact, thanks to an email a few weeks earlier to the founder of the TL program.  Today, after less than a week here, I have a peaceful place to live, meaningful work, food and basic needs met with very simple effort.  Two people I'd cautiously (since that's how us introverts are) call friends, who offer daily stimulating conversations and a fast track to the well-connected local's perspective.  The acquaintance of a dozen people engaged in creating community together, and more chances to be social and share fun projects than I can fit on my calendar. In other places, an introvert like me took a year or two to connect with all of that.  Here, these pieces were already in place, and the door was standing open.

When Transition Lab links with the participation of Time Bank of the Rockies, a whole new set of possibilities opens up.  "Extras" often out of reach to a struggling worker -- natural healthcare, massages, yoga classes, lessons in various new skills -- become simply a matter of deciding where to spend a little time offering something that helps another person out.  And the freedom from chasing rent, provided by Transition's "skilled resident" exchange,  makes that time another form of abundance within reach.  In the space of a few days, then, I've moved from being a worker in survival mode, with barely the energy for self-preservation, to an available and empowered member of a community full of choices regarding "quality of life".  And this power comes not only from such tangible benefits as mentioned above, but from a rapid integration into a larger circle of acquaintance, and a point of connection with their goals and projects within a context of mutual support. When I think of the time, energy, and emotion I and many others have spent just reaching the basics, while our talents, ideas, enthusiasm, and desire to share go to waste, I grieve that loss.  Which is the community's loss as well as ours.  But of course, I have to also celebrate its potential recovery, in such a network as is being created here.  When I imagine what could be done, for givers like me and our chosen communities, if our first meeting occurred on such terms of ease and empowerment...it becomes a life entirely different than the one of separate struggle which I've lived for the last twenty years.  When I relive the too-familiar story of the stranger arriving in town, but find that stranger not only welcomed but immediately engaged in the valuable work at hand, her particular hopes and strengths connected with met needs...well, that's a story with an entirely new plot.

And on the subject of empowerment, I can't recommend enough the experience of thinking, planning, and feeling in terms of time and barter instead of money.  Everyone should get a chance at this.  And could, with the simple actions that would put these structures in place in more communities.  Timebanking is definitely not a one-for-one transaction.   My previous understanding was that an hour of a service I could essentially live without was probably not worth an hour of "my" (meaning my earning potential's) precious time.  But the possibility set quickly gets bigger than that -- and a lot more fun.  A participant is quickly reminded of the more subtle wealth of connection and support, elsewhere termed "social capital", found in an active network of neighbors and friends.  The positive feedback loop that meaningful work, mutual support and fun create is an exponential, rather than a linear, formula for satisfaction.  And the disruption of society's regular story of competition, scarcity and separateness creates a space in which entire new stories can be written.  The kind we mostly just dream about, so far. 

Some of these concepts will take a little longer for people to grasp.  Some, when seen and enacted in the tangible, are immediately within reach.  And those of us for whom journey, community, and dream are already part of one and the same long narrative...we understand, at once.  This is a story we're more than ready to help write.