Oct. 16, 2008 - The Community--Fall
One thing I will really, really miss about the Community experience is “Einshuelung” (German for beginning school). Every year each community arranged a special celebration for “move-up day” as the children moved up to the next grades for the school year. New first graders got extra special treatment, and it was very exciting for them to finally be joining the rest of the school children for hikes and trips and games. The new first graders had been practicing writing their names in kindergarten, and each one got to demonstrate their handwriting prowess in front of the entire community. Having successfully completed that test, they were presented with gifts (one year it was beautiful sweaters for the girls and hats for the boys) and a Zuckertuten, which was a large paper cone decorated and filled with sweets, treats, and school supplies, topped with a balloon. If you have a kid that age, you can just imagine how those new initiates were floating on air all day. I remember my Einshulung day. We were visiting the Community for a year, and I had already made a best friend who stood next to me as we received our zuckertutens. Mine was covered in autumn leaves. Eight years later, my dad and I decorated the zuckertuten for my youngest sister-a fall “flower fairy” with flowing red hair just like my sister’s. She may still have that thing!
There was so much to do in the fall at the Community. It was a time for new (to us) clothes, shoes, jackets and sweaters. This involved trips to the House Mothers and the sewing room for measuring and fitting, and fervent hopes that no ugly clothes or clod-hopper shoes would fit. School started, we took autumn nature hikes, gathered the last harvest of the garden, and had the Harvest Fest. I only remember one Thanksgiving meal, but we had a huge, wonderful harvest festival every year. The older teens and singles group usually did most of the work of decorating the dining hall. Often the walls and windows would be covered with hundreds of paper leaves, and leaves would hang from the ceiling, and the stage would be beautifully arranged with pumpkins, squash, jams and jellies, hay bales and Indian corn. One year we walked in to find the dining room tables lowered very close to the floor, and the chairs replaced with hay bales. The tables had huge bouquets of the last flowers from the cutting garden. One year the table decorations were little mouse couples made from thistles and dressed up with aprons and hats and suspenders.
As always, we sang our hearts out. I am so glad that I have most of the songbooks used by the community, although unfortunately many of the songs are just lyrics and I didn’t learn the music. We always had one extra special singing evening, the Lantern Walk. For weeks ahead of it, everyone in the community would be working on their lanterns, from the kindergarteners to the old folks. With so many creative people and so many options (woodshop, art room, metal shop), there were always incredibly beautiful lanterns by the night of the walk. Paper mache, wood-framed, metal and glass, etc. We put actual candles inside the lantern and gathered in front of the dining room at dusk. We started singing as we lit our lanterns and then the entire community started out on a slow walk around the property’s paths, singing as we went, swinging our lanterns, and laughing as the group spread out. Invariably by the end of the walk the front end of the group would be singing one song, the back end singing another, and the folks in the middle just gave up. When the walk was done we gathered in the dining hall to sing some more, and to enjoy hot apple cider and donuts and cookies. A kid couldn’t ask for a better way to spend an evening.
Every fall we watched the hillsides on the community property go from green to blazing orange and yellow and red and then looked forward to the fun winter would bring us.
You can read previous entries about my community experience at these links:
Introduction
Family
All things in common
Summer at the Community
Comments
Oct. 16, 2008 - Untitled Comment
Posted by Lizzie
Yeah, fall always makes me a miss the community more than a little!
Oct. 17, 2008 - Untitled Comment
Posted by Anonymous
I always really miss the Hof this time of year.. ya, I still have my zuckertόte :D well the fairy anyway, she's hangin on my wall! But my hair isn't long and flowing anymore...
Oct. 18, 2008 - Untitled Comment
Posted by ravengal
You are very good writer, but especially good when writing about your experiences in the Community. Perhaps a fictionalized book could be in your future? I'd buy it.
