Waterfall; or, life in the Fynbos

In 1854, when Henry David Thoreau published Walden; or, Life in the Woods, he was lamenting something specific about New England: that people had access to so much land, and yet lived without access to healthy food. That so many were surrounded by abundance and still experienced abject poverty.

I read that book at eighteen, and it planted a niggling in the back of my mind about one day doing something similar.

In the 21st century, I can't help but see a parallel. Thoreau's neighbours had land in abundance and could not feed themselves from it. We have people in abundance and cannot really connect with them. Faces on screens. Cafés full. Group chats blinking. And still, this profound inability to close the small distance between us. People everywhere, and yet loneliness. People everywhere, and yet isolation.

I didn't feel ready to write this note earlier. But after living for two and a half years with the most incredible group of humans, a collection that has come to be known as the Farm-ily, I now feel qualified to pen some thoughts to paper.

Alessandro, his wonderful partner Polina, Jason, Maya, and I have been at Waterfall Farm for just over two years. What started as a fairly traditional house share has slowly become something I can only describe as a chosen family. A collection of people who, purely because they love one another, choose to live together.

This connection radiates outwards from the farm house and extends to our relationship with Miriam, Henry, and Renski, our farm managers who have been the lands stewards for over 30 years. It extends to how we work with our building team, agricultural teams, and guests who visit the farm.

None of this was predetermined. It was not predetermined that we would all work together. It was not predetermined that five, sometimes six, adults living in a relatively small farmhouse would be a particularly cohesive setup. And it certainly was not predetermined that even when we leave the farm and head into the city, we would still choose to spend as much time together as we do.

Having lived in a number of house shares over the years, this one is unlike anything I have experienced. Constant dinners as a group, almost every night of the week. Choosing, when we are all in Cape Town or a neighbouring city, to see one another for drinks or a walk, not because we have to, but because there is nowhere we would rather be.

I don't know if this will always be the situation. I don't know if it will always be healthy for it to be the situation. But at this particular point in time, I am simply, deeply grateful that it is.

The Skills Exchange

We're coming off the back of our first ever Skills Exchange Retreat. In full honesty, it was closer to a Skills Exchange experiment. Maya opened the weekend with an opening circle and set an intention that has stayed with me: that you can learn and grow from literally everyone around you.

That insight is not just retreat theory. It is the operating system of the farmhouse.

The cohesive nature of our home stems, I think, from how diverse our skill sets are. Rather than minimising anyone for being "less than," or for having a different set of skills, we celebrate the difference. We treat it as comparative advantage in the truest economic sense.

I am good at some things: marketing, technology, financial modelling. I cannot cook to save my life. Alessandro, Maya, Polina, and Jason all cook incredibly well, and each carry a remarkable set of skills I don't share. And none of them shun me for it. They simply celebrate that I am good at some things, less good at others, and we all fall into our lanes.

Alessandro can make the most robust pizza you've ever eaten, and then lead an animal tracking expedition through the fynbos an hour later. He'll build a door instead of buying one, or fix a leaky faucet, all while making it look so damn simple.

Jason can operationalise every staff process at the farm, run a build crew, and still be one of the kindest, most charismatic, empathetic humans when working with guests and build crews alike.

Maya can decide, "we're going to host a retreat," and simply bring it into being, holding every facilitator, every guest, every logistical thread.

Polina can walk past guava trees, olives, and oranges and, days later, hand you the most delicious preserves you've ever tasted (these have become the preserves we sell in the farm shop), all while being a ridiculously talented scientific communicator and ballanisian massage practitioner.

We all carry a skill. We all carry a passion. And this Skills Exchange, to me, was really the embodiment of the microcosm we've built here.

Over the weekend we saw people teaching Sashiko, the Japanese art of visible mending. Creative writing sessions in the shade. Sound bath journeys. Conversations on the creative process and agency. The art of sketching.

But the deepest thing I took away wasn't any single session. It was the reminder that in a room like this, everyone is a teacher and everyone is a student. That if you show up with even a little openness, there is something to learn from every person in the circle. Whoever they are. Whatever they do. However softly they hold it.

On chosen family

What has happened at the farmhouse, and what has happened with this family over time, is that we have moved past window shopping. We have moved past each other's foibles. We have moved past the swipe-right, swipe-left culture that has crept into how we treat relationships, where it feels far too easy to swipe left on a person who was almost right. We have progressed into a small, chosen society. These are our people. We love them for all that they are. We hold different religious beliefs. We hold different political leanings. We are wired differently in all sorts of ways. And we love one another.

I write this as a snapshot in time, mostly to remind myself how good things are right now.

Something I keep noticing about humanity, having lived in many a place, and many a setup, is that we have an extraordinary ability to endure. An extraordinary ability to be resilient, even when the conditions are not optimal. And in that endurance, I think many of us carry a gut feeling: these people are incredible, but maybe they are not my people.

If there is any invitation in this piece, it is this. Sometimes we just need to change the habit pattern. Sometimes we just need to change the environment. A big learning for me has been to trust that gut feeling a little earlier, and to move a little faster toward the place where I might actually find my people.

With gratitude, from the farm,

Aaron

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