MARLBORO — I needed some light electrical work done in my house. I called a local electrician and received a quote of $65 an hour with the promise of a few hours of work plus materials.
Hmmm.
Then I went to Brattleboro Time Trade and listed my electrical installation needs. Within a few days, two local men offered to do the work, for free.
Well, almost for free. They would be getting paid - in the form of time.
However much time it took them to do the job, plus travel (I live in Marlboro), was how much time I would deposit into their online time bank account.
I recently joined Brattleboro Time Trade and had less than two hours in my account (for attending the orientation meeting and setting up my online account), but that did not matter. Like the rest of the country, I was entering into a deficit and the Time Bank was willing to take me on.
Both men are from my local community and one is a semi-retired electrical engineer. I took up the engineer's offer. Once he returned from his trip to Cuba, and I from Canada, he was in my home wiring, drilling, and making that electrical magic happen.
But it was not just electrical magic happening; a change took place.
He was not just a contractor to me. Because I was not paying him money for his services, the usual feelings disappeared: the informal niceties, the dollar meter ticking in my head, and the hope that this guy would leave quickly so my bill would not be so high.
Instead, I felt camaraderie, wonder, and appreciation.
I thought to myself, “This person is here to help me.”
This was a person whom I knew only casually in town, and now he was in my home.
* * *
I did perceive the time I would be paying much the same way I perceive money, because often I feel that I do not have enough time – just as I sometimes feel that I do not have enough money.
I did find myself on several occasions calculating the time cost of the job and wondering how I would ever re-pay it, but that created a different feeling. I felt equal in our ability to share and work together.
Money creates great inequality; someone might have more than someone else, and it is hard to change that. With time, it is always there, no matter how busy we are.
Each day, guaranteed, we all start out with 24 hours. No matter our educational background or socioeconomic condition, the time is there. This parity creates a feeling of abundance, rather than the feelings of scarcity that money (or a lack of money) brings.
So the relationship shifted. Though I had planned to do my own work when he was working, I found that I could not concentrate. My curiosity was killing me.
Who was this person? Why was he in the Time Trade? What had he traded? How had it been? How did he learn to work with electricity?
Suddenly, I was intrigued. I wandered over to chat, and we chatted for hours. It was delightful. We found we were alumni from the same grad school (SIT), shared a love of travel, laughed over the trials and tribulations of both having been Brattleboro landlords, and had similar political views.
The job took hours longer than I had thought it would. I made him a snack, we shared lunch together out on the porch, I offered him vegetables from our garden, and I played with his dog. It was great. I felt like I made a new friend.
After five hours had passed, “we” were almost finished. I had begun to feel a responsibility for the job, too. I felt bad about “using up” so much of his time, though he assured me it was OK, it was what he wanted to be doing.
With about one hour remaining, my closet finally had a light, and the porch light was wired and just about ready to go. He would have to come back to finish. I found myself looking forward to his return as much as I was looking forward to being able to finally see my front steps at night.
* * *
I learned that the time-trade concept was dreamed up in the 1980s by Antioch Law School founder, Dr. Edgar S. Cahn, as he recovered from a heart attack at age 46. He saw “time dollars” as a “new currency” that would provide a solution to the massive cuts in government spending on social welfare that were taking place then (as they are now).
It was a process, but the idea evolved to become a growing global model. There are now time banks in Canada, Chile, Curacao, the Dominican Republic, Israel, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.
The TimeBanks USA mission, according to the organization's website, is about rebuilding communities through economic and social system reform, human empowerment, and a contribution to each other's well-being. This mission is summed up as “strengthening communities through reciprocity.”
The language was familiar. I had just finished my doctoral thesis, “The Effects of Fair Trade on Bolivia's Indigenous Women.” While the U.S. Fair Trade model helped to bring greater social and economic justice to these women, it was a hollow monetary benefit. There was something more missing.
Bolivia recently rewrote its constitution centered around the indigenous concept of “suma qamana” or “good living” (as opposed to the “good life” that U.S. people are thought to pursue - better cars, bigger houses, more things).
Good living was associated with well-being - it was having community, support and food, and getting basic needs met both physically and socially. This, claimed the Bolivians, was achieved through reciprocity.
Until now, I found this hard to define.
* * *
I reread the Time Trade mission: “strengthening communities through reciprocity.” There was that elusive word again. I had understood it as a vague “give and take.”
The Brattleboro Time Trade site explained reciprocity more deeply. While reciprocity was a “two-way street,” the group elaborated that “people [who] only receive end up feeling disempowered, as though they have nothing to offer. People [who] only give often gain an inflated sense of their own importance. Reciprocity leads to mutual respect.”
I remembered feeling guilty as I saw my poor Time Trade helper sweating as he worked on my porch light on a hot summer day. I quickly ran to my garden to see if there were vegetables I could offer him. (He did not cook.)
I realize now that I had been trying to counter the feeling of “disempowernment” I felt at the moment, as I solely received. This was the same feeling the knitters I've studied in Bolivia felt as they were well paid for their work through the Fair Trade model. They were grateful for their earnings but, like me, they wanted to be able to engage in reciprocity and develop that sense of mutual respect.
And so on a quiet Sunday morning, I awoke with these thoughts drifting in from an already forgotten dream. As I woke up while tapping on my keypad, the thoughts solidified into this article.
Now, I feel a sense of awe at our great community and the things we bring to one another.
The Time Bank's website is peppered with the names of local supporters: SoverNet, Post Oil Solutions, Brattleboro Savings & Loan, New England Grassroots Environmental Fund, Delta Energy Group, Vermont Community Foundation, the Thomas Thompson Trust, and many more.
After living here 10 years, I find that Brattleboro still brings surprises, new faces, and wonderful connections.
On a personal level, I feel that I just found a new friend in our community, in the Time Bank, and in the people who are a part of it. I also feel a deep sense of generosity, gratitude, support, and caring as I realize that this is a community that can be relied upon.