Living in a commune

 I posted something on twitter, in response to a question about living in a commune.

It's just a spontaneous twitter 'thread' but several people liked it so I thought I would share it here, as it refers to a short period in my life that was, in retrospect, special.

When I left school I was idealistic so wanted to join Voluntary Service Overseas - but had no useful skills so they didn't want me. My granny - who seemed to know all sorts of people - suggested the kibbuttz movement in Israel (no, we're not Jewish). So my parents, who were wonderfully liberal, somehow let 18-year-old me go to war-torn Israel on my own, not knowing to where I might be allocated. I worked in a factory making photo machines to save the money to afford it, and flew out to Israel with no idea where to go.

From Tel Aviv airport I took a taxi to the kibbutz organisation office, slept on the pavement, and finally found I was to go to Kibbutz Mahanayim in the Golan Heights.

Neither my parents, my granny nor I seemed to have considered that a year after the Yom Kippur War, a kibbutz in the Golan Heights might be quite a tense place to be: but the tension was mostly in people's heads because the awaited chemical attack from Syria never came, and in fact my time there was peaceful in the extreme - apart from Israeli Phantom jets flying supersonic to bomb the Lebanon, and the horizon mostly being on fire as a result, and the regular drills for the 4-minute warning of chemical attack and dances were legendarily good, even though the milita did insist on wearing their Uzzi machine guns while dancing.

Picking grapefruit was idyliic and we all smelled like air freshener - jobs were rotated, animal husbandry, tending chrysanthemums in the greenhouses for export, cooking, washing up and the only work you did was that allocated - so if you were in the dairy, although it was a long day, you had no other duties at all - food was served to you, washing was done for you, everything was shared. Nobody got paid - you the same essentials and could choose (within reason) luxuries - you got a small amount of pocket money for when you left the kibbutz. Child care was also shared - parents worked, had two hours quality time with their children, who were at all other times cared for in the creche and school (including at night..).

I have to say, it was a magical, idyllic time, but 18-year-old me was not into the free love, sex and drink that was part of the attraction for many of us non-kibbutzniks: I locked myself in the shower once to get away from an eager Israeli army girl, & pretended to sleep while my roommate got noisy at night with others. And sharing everything is wonderful, but if some share too little or too much then there are - and were - tensions. The Israeli dream was lovely - a new life for so many - but I wasn't totally ignorant of global politics, and seeing how terrified people were of their enemy - but how powerful was the response to that enemy - and meeting such lovely new Jewish settlers, but also displaced Palestinians, was unsettling so I was sort of unhappy in such a happy place - and I was genuinely terrified - shit scared, you might accurately say - by what seemed to be an imminent and catastrophic war - we were constantly on the alert for chemical attack from Syria, terrorists at night, and I was scared witless much of the time.

And then one evening I walked barefoot in the grass, gazing in awe at the huge dark desert sky, careless and free, at one with the universe - and a scorpion stung me and I had an allergic reaction so they sent me home. Which was lucky because I got a job as a postman, which I adored doing, met the girl who is still my much loved wife, and then went to university.

So on communes, I would say that one was wonderful, amazing, idyllic and inspiring - and the human tensions were just human but I didn't know that, and a cautious 17-year-old is probably not the best explorer of communes and free love - and don't go barefoot in the grass.