Every year as the Queen Anne’s lace dots the side of the roads around the area, I realize that I am coming upon the anniversary of my first visit to Dancing Rabbit.

Christina here, writing about questions, heat, and other regular summer things in my little corner of the world.

I came on my own to the 2015 visitor program because there weren’t any spaces left for kids in that program and because my husband, Javier, couldn’t take time off from his job. Mostly what I remember from that time was being really hot, loving the work parties, and asking lots and lots of questions.

I only had five days to get as many of my questions answered as possible.  Mostly, I had one big question—what’s the downside? I had poured over the website, watched every YouTube video I could find, and had even listened to every episode of a short-lived DR podcast. I thought I had finally found the community that I had been looking for for as long as I could remember—but was it really worth leaving everything behind and moving to Missouri of all places?

I had little time to get those questions answered, and so I was a bit… pushy during my five-day “scouting mission.” I don’t really remember what most of my specific questions were, but what I was mainly interested in finding out was what the downsides to living here are. We have a joke that if you ask 10 different Rabbits the same question you’ll get 11 different answers, and so I heard various responses from a lack of plentiful live local music, to being far from family, to the heat, to the cold, to the lack of local employment opportunities.

In any case, I was pretty convinced within the first 48 hours of my visit that this was the place for me. Things have not been perfect for sure, but I am very glad that we made that leap of faith.

As we move through the 2023 visitor and wexer (work-exchanger) season, we are seeing many prospective Rabbits, people who are here to check out what life is like and maybe stay on for some more months to try it out and see if it’s a good fit.

While this season can be exhausting and a lot of work—cooking for 20 people is nothing short of stressful for me no matter how many times I pull it off—I do love answering questions about life here. It’s a nice reminder for me of all the reasons why I decided to come back after my visitor program eight years ago.  And yeah, I even love answering the hard questions. For one thing, it’s a great reminder that I live in a place where transparency and honesty are valued, and for another, it helps me to gain perspective on things that can seem big and overwhelming when stuck in my head. Getting them out on the table and actually recognizing them makes them a lot less scary to me.  

Besides reminding me of my first visit to NeMo, mid-July is the time of year when I get a break from driving to school and my kids are doing their summer projects and plans. It’s the time before we get tomatoes but after we have started harvesting kale, potatoes, and herbs. It continues to be hot out, and the pond has lost a bit of its magic, but I’m still in love with the white clouds over the yellow-green prairie and the big skies of the Midwest. It’s the time of year when I have cut flowers in a vase before me whenever I work on the computer, but I contemplate taking down at least some of the almost tree-sized sunflowers that have taken over much of the garden. I’m not quite into food preservation mode, but I really should do something with all that kale.

We have a few more weeks off before the next visitor session begins, and so I am not cooking for anyone outside of my family for at least the next while. I’m still answering questions whenever I can, though, as we have a few new residents and both individual and village wexers who are staying on past the visitor program. 

I guess these days when I have some of those big questions myself, I think about them (hopefully not at two in the morning!), I write about them in a journal, or I ask friends. Sometimes the process of talking through it all helps me figure out my answers, and sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s still fun to ask.

 

Christina Lovdal Gil never mentions how much weight she can bench press, but because she is my gym buddy, I can tell you, it looks pretty impressive. Thanks for keeping it real, Christina.