This is something I wrote for a private group of friends a couple years ago, but now have a few people to share it with, unrelated to that group, so posting publicly.
LOOOPS is a hypothetical real estate development where
people stay in a network of close proximity short-term
vacation rentals which are, critically, close to big urban
epicenters. At these country location, people “loop” out to
participate in community style feasts at nearby agritourism
venues, while keeping their city lives, to varying extents.
At LOOOPS, people subscribe to visit at least six times in
five years.
Deandra J. Hawkins was a name that, when yelled,
required a deep breath after the fourth syllable “j” before
the breathy “h” in the Hawkins — as her mother well knew by
the age of five. Precious little Dee Dee was smart, sweet,
and even kind. But she also had a sharp tongue and a smart
mouth, from time to time. Hence the breath work technique
cultivated by her mother, Janet.
Dee Dee grew up to be “Di” and Di had learned over the
years not so much to control her smart mouth but to put it to
work. As an attorney for artists and animators in the media
industry, she defends artists and charms her way through
complicated meetings. The senior partners at her firm have
not - as of yet - had reason to perfect Janet’s scolding
strong “h.” She has found reasonable success at work, and
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despite an early push, seems to balance work and life enough
she has made a small family.
Di has been to Paris. And Cairo. And Hong Kong. And
Sydney. She has been able to afford casual travel and has the
social media account scroll down to prove it. She met her
husband, Clint, in SF on a trip to visit girlfriends and
interview at some startup. Clint was also interviewing and
actually got a job offer. Alas, he fell in love and moved to
LA to be with Di. Clint and Di went on a great honeymoon to
Bali and went to some other awesome places over the years,
like Bozeman for their baby-moon and Asheville for their
anniversary. New York every Spring.
Di and Clint both have a lot of flexibility, with the
potential to not only take weeks of vacation every year, but
also to work remotely and do longer working vacations and
sabbaticals. Clint is a sales an strategy consultant for
technology companies, so despite the occasional rough month,
he has long-term agility in travel. Their income does not
allow them to retire early like after a startup acquisition,
but it does allow them to work for a reasonable amount of the
year and enjoy most of what life has to offer.
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From that position of privilege, they have begun to
reexamine what it is that will make them happy with their
“life” time — their non-work, not-necessarily-at-home, family
photos on the fridge type experiences time will look like in
the future. Their families live far away, and they don’t
belong to a church. They have talked about investing in
second homes as AirBNB properties, but they don’t have a
geographic location to attract them with connections to their
family or work (and school) life communities. With up to 50
years of work life and a conceivable life span of 100, Clint
and Di can visualize an extraordinary life, but they can’t
put their finger on what the difference is between “this” and
“that.”
When they talk about it, they come up with images from a
time now mostly gone, where generations of families
gravitated towards centralized geographic places — like
grandma’s house out in the country, or the church retreat
center people have gone to for two or three generations. They
come up with idyllic scenes like adolescent kids carving
their names in a LOOOPS tree.
Clint and Di do not have the time or resources to make
something like that happen. Their siblings are in distant
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places. Their family time is ample compared to many but tight
compared to their grandparents’ free time in their agrarian
and communal lives. And realistically, neither one of them
knows how to start at tractor let alone drive one to actually
keep a place like that going. A clogged irrigation ditch
would flummox Clint.
Fortunately, a friend of Clint’s sent him a video that
described a new kind of place, space, and experience — a
place that is something in between a short-term vacation
rental experience and a long-term place you emotionally bond
to over many events, celebrations, and feasts. A place full
of memories, but also without the liability and complexity of
long-term ownership of the place. A place to carve your kids’
initials in LOOOPS.
Then - hopefully - they can bring their kids back a
generation later to see that old tree and carve their own
initials in it, down below.
LOOOPS worked a lot like an AirBNB, in that Di and Clint
didn’t have to buy a place, finance it, take on liabilities,
insurance or anything. They just signed up, made a deposit,
and made travel plans. It took about 30 minutes to sign up,
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and that included watching a couple introductory videos,
completing paperwork, and confirming things like dates, food
and allergy information, and preferences. Each detail made it
clear that LOOOPS was about building an experience that
focused on health, fun, food, and friends & family.
They signed up, in part, because they knew that in the
“Five Six Mix Pack” they bought of experiences, they would
have six trips to LOOOPS in their five year commitment. Five
of those trips would overlap with the times that Clint’s old
friend, Dereck, and his partner would be there. That way they
could share in celebrations and feasts, and do many
activities together; but crucially, without having to
organize every activity, do them all together all the time,
or even be there at exactly the same time. The sixth trip was
a longer three-week stay that Clint and Di would do when the
kids were old enough to stay with their grandparents. Both of
them had dreams of developing books. Clint a sci-fi story and
Di a collection of old photographs of turn of the century
black jazz singers, a fascination she had picked up from her
mom’s black heritage because of the role music played in
women’s empowerment.
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(It helps her remember why she does the job she does
now.)
Their first introduction LOOOPS was three weeks before
their first trip, when Dereck and Timothy, his partner,
hosted a dinner party to make plans and describe their
earlier experience. Clint and Di got excited looking at
pictures of the feast from Dereck and Timothy’s trip. The
food featured all kinds of extraordinary farm to table
options, with a focus on food produced on or near the LOOOPS
grounds. Even the beef was raised on site. Humanely. And
deliciously. There was a wild game appetizer tray with
everything from venison to squirrel broth soup. There were
wines from the region, and a huge assortment of teas. Dessert
was a veritable cornucopia of things that could be roast on
sticks, a la s’mores.
Di and Clint came to understand that every Saturday
night - when LOOOPS is in active community mode - this huge
feast takes place. Many community members help and
contribute, but there is no obligation to do so. During the
feast, musicians performed, and a group of kids appeared to
put on a little talent show. Throughout the weekend, there
were opportunities to do yoga, martial arts, farming,
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ranching, and horseback riding. There was an entire program
dedicated to providing very engaging childcare, with a
professional childcare worker available 24/7.
Perhaps most exciting to Di was the healing center. With
services ranging from equestrian therapy to training in how
to use cannabis products for first time or uneducated users,
the healing center enabled busy people to get essential
restorative services, and recover in community. Even before
going, Di thought about extending to a broader package of
visits. But, of course, they were already headed there soon
and could upgrade later.
//
As they drove up, Clint was like “daaammmn” because it
was beautiful country all around. They had flown into the
airport at Anytown and had the choice between renting a car
or taking a LOOOPS shuttle service. Because they wanted to
feel like they could leave if they didn’t like it, they
booked a minivan. Clint ignored Di’s comment that it was
actually probably better than their SUV if they were to have
another kid. They loaded up at the airport, grabbed a last
Starbucks, and started to follow the map.
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Di was texting Timothy and he and Dereck were already
there. The way that LOOOPS was setup was that a ranch and
farming property was the center of activity, but that
sprawled out into a nearby set of houses that were rental
units. The farm itself could be rented too, but for much
bigger parties than theirs, usually more than fit in a
fifteen passenger van. Clint and Di were in the cottage house
of a bigger house, about a five minute golf cart ride from
the center of activity where the food and events were held.
When they got to their rental, there was a gift basket
with snacks and toys to entertain the kids for a while so
they could unpack. They were doing four nights, which felt
like a lot now, but was what Dereck and Tim had urged them to
sign up for, saying they had only done two their first trip
and hated leaving Sunday morning after brunch. So Thursday
through Tuesday it is.
Thursday night did not have a community feast, per se,
but there was an option to get in on a take out order from a
nearby town, which they had signed up for initially. It was
delivered in a huge truck load of take out boxes and they met
up with Dereck and Tim and some other mutual friends over
take out. A LOOOPS team member ate with them and answered
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questions. The kids began to find their way around the
playground that had been retrofit on to the farm, and a
battle begun to brew between the Penguin Team and the Puffin
Team in what became a two hour long capture the flag game,
complete with politicking and a brief cheating scandal
resolved by a pinky swear treaty.
Di woke up at 6am on auto pilot and, as was her habit,
she decided to go for a jog around the farm. While not a
surprise, it was surprising to see a LOOOPS team member
already outside with a wide array of child-tempting snacks
and toys. More sleepy headed parents dropped their children
there as soon as they woke up, many parents still in their
pajama pants, zooming back on a golf cart — many keenly aware
of a child-free vacation morning and what delights might
await them back at their rental. After her run, Di scooted
her daughter there quickly.
Clint ate five hard boiled eggs covered in hot sauce.
Then, completely unfettered by dignity, six strips of bacon.
Then a handmade pop tart and two cups of coffee. Di crafted a
flawless flax oatmeal bowl, indulging in a pinch of honey on
top. Clint asked if they had bloody marys. They did not; but
Clint was told he could go check out the cannabis on boarding
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program if he wanted something to take the edge off. After
his CBD infused coffee, he did just that, knowing that he had
a play date with his kids at 2pm but that he could lean on
the team and community around him to give him some time and
space. He had also told two other dad friends there the same
weekend that he and Di would take a turn Sunday afternoon
helping cover extra kids, and one of those couples had
booked, accordingly, a horseback riding session for the wife
and an equine therapy session for the dad.
Di and several of the more feminine friends visiting
LOOOPS in this “cohort” had decided that they would sign up
to help tend the farm Friday. Doing something that got her
hands dirty sounded great. And frankly, it was a chance to
chat, gossip, and deal with things that were much simpler
than contract negotiation and city life. They did a quick
little training and learned that part of what they would be
doing is harvesting beans to be used in the feast on Saturday
night. That little touch of participation brought out some
pride. She reflected while she did it on how distant her
daughter must think food is from what it actually is. How
crazy it is that we can all grow food rather easily, but we
prefer to get it at a store. She wasn’t in a time in life or
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a place to change her ways, but living another way for some
time each year already felt right.
Di got a bit of a rash working in the garden, and she
felt bad because she had been a little snappy at some of her
friends. She had recovered, but needed a break from
socializing and went back to their rental. Clint was out
riding ATV’s and “helping” the farm by “checking the
perimeter” for animal intrusions and other problems. ATV’s
had proven a great way to keep first time men from damaging
farming operations with ego or ignorance. On future trips,
Clint would legitimately help raise a new greenhouse and, in
time, become of the long-term stewards of the farm property.
But for now he did the “absolutely critical” thing of riding
in a giant circle around the property, and felt great pride
in his additive value to the community, as he made clear to
his wife in the six pictures he sent her of selfies on the
ATV.
More guests arrived Friday, and while they loosely knew
many of them, they knew about half of the eighty or so guests
who would attend the feast. Of those, about fifty were part
of this cohort and there intentionally, and the rest were
team members and long-term members who sometimes participate
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in dozens of feasts per year. One of those members was there
with a small cadre celebrating their tenth wedding
anniversary. Everyone mingled around a late night bonfire and
music session that night, after dining in private homes. Each
home was setup with a selection of pre-prepared meals ready
to cook collaboratively. People chopped their own veggies and
grilled their own meat, but they didn’t need to proof their
own biscuit dough, make their own sauce from scratch, etc.
This bonding was essential, and only took place at some
houses to encourage hosting and receiving. Clint and Di had
dinner with people they barely knew from the next house over,
and, of course, Dereck and Timothy. To put a little extra
flare, Timothy had stayed on helping the garden and harvest
fresh herbs. Everyone gushed over his mint salad and the
bundles of aromatic herbs he had dotted on the table. He
teared up a little at being valued for his crafty touch. He
felt the love.
Saturday was a big day about the farm. The feast was an
eight hour affair, and for many people, it started at the
crack of dawn. The tradition was that the feast was prepared,
in large part, by the community; although the LOOOPS team
backstopped every piece of it, having once gone so far as to
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put on their own talent show, given that a cohort of people
without children or performers had shown up. Some people
decorated. Some cooked. Some practiced songs to share. Others
just helped set tables or tidy after the big event. Di and
Clint had signed up their family to help with the brown bag
lunch, which meant showing up right after breakfast to
prepare a dozen giant picnics that would be used to keep
people out of the main dining area during preparation. It was
a good, safe, easy role for first timers, and had the
advantage of having nothing to do during the feast, so they
could just enjoy.
During the day Saturday, Di and Clint went for a hike
together and found a nice tree to carve their initials into,
giggling like teenagers — in part thanks to the excellent and
appropriately-dosed cannabis that Clint had brought along
from his training earlier. Di had brought snacks including
fresh vegetables from the farm where she had worked the day
before, and would work again tomorrow morning. Clint proudly
pointed down to the strong perimeter he helped maintain. Di
ignored the fence, which seemed quite good, and much more
reliable than Clint’s tour. She kissed him on the back of the
neck, lovingly.
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Their daughter napped while they got ready. They wore,
as encouraged, strong shoes (boots for both!), jeans, and
nice but durable tops. It could get cold at night. They
looked very fashionable for the country, but still like they
belonged. Clint sported his pocket knife. In case their was
farm work to be done at the dinner table. Di pointed out to
Clint that they could actually leave a large plastic bin
there at LOOOPS, with clothes and other accessories they
might want for their LOOOPS life. For them it was too soon,
but it made sense that long term community members would want
to be able to get here without luggage.
Before the feast, they had to make a choice about
programming on Sunday. There were, essentially, three tracts
they could take. As Di had done, you could sign up for farm
work, ATV’s, or other fun activities around the farm. You
could, of course, do your own thing and join activities a la
carte. The third tract was more focused on healing and
personal development. The all day participants started the
day with meditation, moved into yoga, equestrian therapy, and
even opportunities to deal with sad events like recent loss
of a loved one. As first timers, they were encouraged to sit
in on the Sunday night discussion groups. They could go “all
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in” but neither felt the need to do that, at least not yet,
so the discussion groups were great. Di signed up for one
about being a working mom, where the first thirty minutes
were a presentation of research from three new books, and
then ninety minutes of small group discussion. Clint signed
up for a course that surprised Di: Home Gardening as Healing.
This program gave an introductory lesson on medicinal plants
you can grow at home, and then did a hands on lab to seed,
transfer, and heal plants from the farm. Even more to her
surprise, he actually started to grow rosemary. (And killed a
cannabis plant he bought.)
On Sunday, their daughter had to say goodbye to some of
the kids but then still had new friends to play with until
the next day. She thrived with the relative freedom of the
farm. Her parents actually felt great about the cuts and
scratches she earned. This “summer camp” effect was something
that Dereck and Timothy, because they didn’t have kids yet,
had not articulated to them. It was, in truth, the most
compelling reason to participate in LOOOPS for them at this
stage of life. In twenty years, it would be more for their
personal experiences, much like Tim and Dereck. They came to
learn that this is by design, creating a community with
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people in many plural stages of life and identity, not a
vacation destination with a singular modality of operation
that maximizes profitability through demographic and
psychographic advertising targeting rather than authentic, if
complex, community structures that create something no profit
can ever buy.
//
On Tuesday, Di got an invite to a private social network
app. There were photos from the photo booths setup for kids,
with their daughter leaping over a haystack in one of them.
There were shots of the feast. Of the beans she picked! A
properly shot video of the main performance’s best song. But
more than that, there was a photo of her. A photo a smile
that she longed to see in herself more. It was the opposite
of a headshot. Her true beauty. Maybe a little quirky. But
her. Same was true of Clint. Maybe his ATV ride wasn’t as
badass as he talked it up to be, but she would take that
version of him over the one stressed out over sales calls any
time. For a second she opened Instagram to share that photo
of herself, but then she paused and realized that she didn’t
want to share that part of herself right now as much as she
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wanted to protect it. She printed the photo. Put it on her
fridge.
The family all had the blues after the mountain-top
experience at the LOOOPS feast, and their daughter spent
weeks asking to go back every weekend. Over time, they booked
more than their initial six pack of bookings. Di began
pulling in artists from her network to share their musical
and poetic gifts at Saturday night Feasts. Clint learned to
ride the ATV with actual farm equipment on it, and how to fix
broken barbed wire. Only about 50% of his repair jobs had to
be redone by the actual ranchers at LOOOPS by the fourth
year. As she grew, their daughter became a talent show star,
presenting grand theatrical performances, compelling other
kids into tiny versions of content as diverse as Shakespeare
or Nirvana.
When she decided to get married, she got married at
LOOOPS. She and her husband carved their names into the tree
where her parents had carved theirs, now thirty years
earlier. When Clint passed, a group of friends planted tree
together, and drowned a bottle of whiskey in his honor. When
Di passed, her daughter spent a whole Sunday crying in the
garden picking beans. Two hundred people packed the feast the
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next week, and world-class chefs served a dozen courses, each
a more creative use of those beans than the last. Di’s great
great grandchildren delighted in the oddity of bean flavored
ice cream once a year, for decades to come. Many of them
remained “members” in LOOOPS communities.
In their last trip together, Clint and Di visited a
LOOOPS community in West Africa, where the community played a
vital role in shaping the definition of success for a
generation of new wealth. After the discovery of more rare
earth metals nearby, the owners of the few operations where
it was mined could have grown into warlords, tyrants, or
digital dictators. But having visited LOOOPS centers in
America, the founders of this community had woken up to the
fact that no amount of wealth can buy the joy of sharing
feasts with the family you have chosen. They woke up to the
fact that time is love and time is life and life is love. So
they, too, built a place for people to focus on that,
forgoing extravagant wealth for the humble aspiration to
forge a new way, a new definition of success — and new way of
living, based on what we actually are, not the shell of a
spiritual being left after a lifetime of productivity.
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While their wealth soared, people throughout the region
began to gossip about what the ultra wealthy spend their
money on. In a time long before, people would dream of yachts
and mega mansions. Now they dream of what the ultra rich
have. Time to be in nature, feast with family, heal, revel,
and reveal. People of all classes are starting to take
advantage of their own family land. To revel in the nature.
To heal in ways that are their birth right. To be what they
are in places designed to celebrate their beautiful
interconnectivity with the universe.
Clint and Di did natural burials in the same forest
patch at a LOOOP on the coast of California. Mushrooms
brought them home.
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