New episode alert: "Group Living" with Lola Milholland
New episode alert: "Group Living" with Lola Milholland
Our 3 fave moments from a new podcast episode, for a new book, for a new (old) way of living
Pew pew pew! New episode of the pod is out today! And not only that, our new episode also helps to celebrate pub day for our friend Lola’s debut book, called "Group Living and Other Recipes" -- a hilarious and profound memoir on communal living experiments.
Despite our longtime love and respect1 for Lola, until reading an ARC of her book earlier this spring, we never fully realized how much our values overlapped with Lola’s worldview of a family and home life rooted in friendship. We couldn’t wait to welcome her back onto Don’t Think Twice.
Through the successes and misadventures of her own shared-living arrangement (and those of her elders), Lola’s book asks us to consider: how can we reimagine our living setups to support deeper connection with each other and our communities? In particular, she points to living in group settings with friends as a first choice — not just a way station before we graduate to solo/coupled isolation.
Here is a moment of tough love from the episode that is sticking in our craw:
“I think a lot of us daydream that when we’re old, we’re going to live with our friends. Something miraculous is going to happen, and then finally we will live in the sitcom: It’s going to be like ‘Golden Girls’ for everybody.
That’s a wonderful vision, but it’s not going to be real if we don’t build the structures to make it happen, earlier.”
Oof. SO many of us (self included) share this fantasy of living together as friends once we are old, but most of us are generally unwilling to walk the walk NOW. It’s so true: how can I expect to be the Blanche to your Dorothy without so much as an inch of groundwork ahead of time?? Without at least a commitment to our shared future?2
* * *
In our conversation, I loved how Lola reframed some of the elements that people fear about group living. For instance, at one point she argued (convincingly!) that “lack of privacy” is not always a bad thing. And here, she explained why being “in debt” to other people is what keeps us bonded:
“As i wrote this book I thought more and more about how beautiful and profound it is to owe someone something. How amazing that if somebody needs you, you will show up because you owe it to them. I think that’s part of the resilience that gets built up in communities, is the creation of DEBT. …I think that sense of debt and gratitude is how you create a relationship that’s living”
Let’s roll that back once again, fam. When you offer me something, big or small, and I receive it gratefully — I then feel you deserve some kindness in return. I owe it to you. I offer something back to you, and you receive it gratefully, and we start over again. This is so simple, and this is community building!
Let’s call it the “Debt-Gratitude Cycle.” Did we just invent a term? Can we get a Nobel in Economics over here please?
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Speaking of economics, let’s leave you with a third and final sticky quote. How can we possibly make this shit work in the world we live in [gestures around vaguely at world on fire]? Lola pushes back on our fear that these idealist concepts might be impossible in a cruelly capitalist world:
“Yes, Idealism without facing money is a road to disappointment. That said, we are nothing without idealism, and without vision, and the attempt towards something that is better. …To not to do it at all is defeatist.
We HAVE to be trying new nontraditional home structures with the tools that we have. That means someone is going to have to own homes, and be willing to share them, and create other systems of decision-making within them”
Ah, that’s a palate cleanser. Let’s move forward with our eyes open to the hardness of the world, but without letting it stop us from trying something better. Treat each other softly this week, friends.
Nb: if you liked this episode, please rate the pod wherever you listen to podcasts? [e.g. Apple, Spotify, a secret third thing?]
Lola was an early guest in "Season Zero" of the pod back in 2018, when we were often podcasting about freelancing, and living “free-range” lives. Here's that episode, in which Lola talks about the genesis of her noodle company, Umi Organic.
On the subject of being old… the next installment of the podcast is about aging. We speak to experts working in elder advocacy about community and connection for our later (and final) chapters of life.