This morning I woke up at around 9AM and drove toward Denver. The drive ended up taking about 6 hours including minimal breaks.
Last night, I received a couchsurfing response from a local retired guy (Howard Cole https://www.couchsurfing.com/people/howard.cole) living in Denver, CO. At first, I was a bit hesitant to join him but a quick look at his “references” and “reviews” immediately changed my perspective and I agreed to meet him and possibly do a day trip with him at 4PM today. Based on his reviews, he seems to be a nice guy, great conversationalist, and very knowledgeable about Denver.
After a quick shower at Anytime Fitness, I drove to his neighborhood around 4PM and walked into his home. We had conversations about my travels so far, his life so far in Denver, and suggestions/planning for my upcoming 5-7 days in Colorado. He was selfless and generous enough to bring out a physical map and highlight the route, so that I would have a physical map for the trip.
We also discussed that tomorrow we’ll be meeting at 8AM at his house for breakfast and leave at around 9AM to visit Rocky Mountain National Park, Boulder, Loveland, Fort Collins and Estes Park. We should be back around 6pm or 7pm, at which time I’ll go to the Denver couchsurfing meetup at a local bar.
Howard lives in a “co-housing community” named Hearthstone Cohousing. (http://hearthstonecohousing.com/) (http://cohousing.org/what_is_cohousing) Cohousing is a community-oriented living style in which a community of 20-40 condominium residences is built, each one owned separately. There is a community house which contains a kitchen, dining area, and many other communal rooms (similar to a college dorm facility or a summer camp). The 20-40 households inside a cohousing community share occasional meals, events, and a more social lifestyle. Today was a “clean-up day” where each person helped clean up the community house which was followed by a 5:30pm dinner, which was attended by about 30 people.
I asked questions to Howard about the cohousing set up (and he answered):
- What are some of the pitfalls of the coworking structure? Sometimes people living in the neighborhood don’t understand what they’re getting themselves in to. They need to be willing to clean up, cook, and be involved in the community
- How many of the original tenants (from 15 years ago) still live in the community? Well over 50%
- Does the cohousing structure lead to these residences being worth more, the same, or less than they would be worth if they were conventional homes (without cohousing)? Same price, maybe even a little more
At about 5:15, we walked over to the cohousing community and met a large group for dinner. During the dinner, I sat down with a few of the residents and we (perhaps a bit awkwardly) discussed the history of the community, how long they’ve lived in the community, how they enjoyed it, etc. Most of the residents were extremely liberal, probably just as liberal as the residents of Berkeley.
After the dinner, we went back to Howard’s house and spoke for an hour or two about his upbringing, religion, and how/why he ended up moving to Denver. He was born in Lincoln, Nebraska into a religious family, visited Denver when he was in high school, and loved it so much that he decided to move to Denver around the time he graduated.
The conversation became very deep, and he relayed a very moving/emotional story in his life:
One night at a bar, he met a man and became instant friends with him, partaking in hiking and other activities. This man had recently become divorced from his wife and had two sons. Since his wife was an alcoholic, he (Howard’s friend) retained custody of the children (boys aged 11 and 17). A few years into their friendship, the father (an alcoholic, gambler, and prescription drug-abuser) committed suicide and the kids returned to the mom’s custody. Not much after, the mom died through an alcohol overdose. Howard then obtained custody of the kids, who eventually moved out. The oldest son committed suicide and the youngest son died via an overdose of alcohol/heroine. The youngest son’s death occurred in 2015 and Howard is still a bit emotional about it.
After hearing his story, I became much more appreciative and understanding of the benefits of the cohousing living structure. Instead of Howard being a depressed, 65 year old lonely single man, he is living an active, social, independent lifestyle with a group of close friends/family who care about him and feel connected to him. Regardless of the borderline socialist way of life, there might be something to be learned by the social/relationship aspects of the cohousing lifestyle.
