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Back in school again. I was an orientation leader for the new students before most of the returning students were even back on campus. That's how I met Gloria. As a part of orientation, I led workshops on swing dancing and contra dancing. Gloria came to both. And when I passed around a list for people to sign if they wanted me to call them next time I went dancing (ever so convenienetly), her name was on there. She certainly didn't look like a first-year, though. None of that need to show off; none of the nervousness, or just plain stupidness that first-years seemed to me to have.
It didn't take me long to decide to go dancing. I called Gloria first, to make sure the trip wouldn't be wasted on some silly boys and girls. And she said she wanted to go! So it was decided. It turned out that none of the other people I called wanted to go with us, but I called a friend of mine from Smith College, and she agreed (the first time she had ever agreed to come dancing, after quite a few requests!). Two women, one dance...I was finally figuring things out!
Talking to Gloria on the way to pick up the other woman, I realized how absolutely incredibly intelligent she was. So maybe Laura wasn't the only one! Gloria was a year older than me, which I suppose accounted for a lot of how she managed to be a first-year but also not a first-year. To top it off, she told me all about the open classroom she had been in for many years; how when in fourth grade she decided that the only thing she wanted to do was to read books, that that is exactly what she did; and how when she finally got to a normal school, she was way ahead in math - as far ahead, in fact, as I had been, which I never ever thought I would encounter! She was definitely the woman for me.
The dance was a blast for all of us, and of course it was hard to say goodbye to Gloria afterwards and drive the whole quarter-mile back to my mod alone. I told her I was going to a cello concert the next day (a yurt benefit concert, in fact), and after a while of being too nervous to ask if she would like to come, she herself asked if she could come with me. I was ecstatic! Of course she could, and she could come over to dinner beforehand, too. Driving away from blue-eyed, dark-haired, smiling, charming, and brilliant Gloria, I acted out my passion dance, shouting and stomping from the stop sign to the Enfield parking lot, and then on foot back to my mod to sleep.
The cello concert went well. I introduced her to my close friend Jeremy, and they got along pretty well. Later, Jeremy told me he couldn't believe how lucky I was.
``Lucky?'' I responded, ``Do you not remember how a third of everything I did last year, I did with the express purpose of finding a woman like her? Lucky, ha! I've put in the time, pal. I did all those swing dance worshops; well, they didn't pan out then, but it comes around. Lucky my foot!''
Gloria and I quickly got to know each other better and better, picking raspberries and swing dancing later that week. Then my friend Jon called and offered to take me along to an enormous agricultural fair in Maine. After insuring that he could take two just as easily as one, I told him I would call him right back, and then quickly called Gloria, who, to my continued astonishment, told me she would love to go with me to the fair in Maine.
When she came over as we were getting ready to leave for the fair, I gave her the article about honesty and nonmonogamous relationships my friend Mosely had sent me a copy of from his commune, ``The Possible Relationship.'' When she was done reading, I asked her what she had thought of it. A kind of peculiar response; but not a bad one, I don't think. ``My father would really be very interested in some of those ideas,'' she said. That sounded positive, though we would certainly have to discuss it again later.
Then we were talking in the back of Jon's car; she and Jon were conversing about Africa. Smart, she was, and tired, too; the hours there in the car slowly brought her closer to me, and rested her head against me as we sped along in the back of Jon's car, the ratatat-tatting diesel. Then, dashing from car through the rain to some of the most delicious food in the world, and upstairs to go to sleep listening to the clickety-clack of the rain and toying with one another's fingers until at last, in the dark Maine night, we kissed.
But that wasn't the only thing in my life. There were other parts of my education too: chorus, a little more work with computers, a very informal independent study in math (which Gloria and I worked on together), and more work trying to influence the educational atmosphere of the college.
Herb and I also continued a discussion we had been having for over a year - how to provide me with a familiarity with the material he found essential to his own thinking about the world - material he had learned through the core curriculum when he'd attended Columbia. At the time, I didn't think this was very important material, and was disheartened that Herb kept telling me how I didn't know anything and couldn't write. And yet, when I asked him how I might go about getting that education at Hampshire (or how he used his knoweldge now) he couldn't really say. The previous spring, we tried for a few weeks to work on the Greeks together, but it hadn't seemed particularly relevant to me, and neither of us was excited about it, so I'd stopped. It didn't seem at all relevant; I thought I had everything pretty much figured out. College itself seemed to be full of far too many irrelevant ideas and not enough people taking any of the ideas seriously.
Herb did make one very well-timed suggestion at this time, though, in email:
Do you think you have the connections and charisma to be a leader of student activities and interventions on behalf of project-based, personalized individualized alternative education at Hampshire? You are the logical unburnt-out ungraduated successor to a fine cadre of people who argued and fought and served real well on the committees to save Hampshire. I recommend that you serve on the school of CCS as a student member and that you attend at least some of the school of NS meetings!Love, HERB
I did become more involved in the politics of Hampshire, as a member of the schools of CCS and NS. I was also elected to the Senate (by the student body) and appointed to the Educational Policy Committee (by the school of CCS). It was confusing, though. I knew what I didn't like about Hampshire, and I knew that most things discussed by the Educational Policy Committee (EPC) were even stupider than the current policies. But, aside from providing opposition, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to make my role proactive. That took quite a while to figure out - and interestingly, once I finally started to figure it out, I realized that being on a committee was neither necessary nor sufficient.
What has turned out to be one of the most valuable twists of fate for me in this development was a brief, unofficial student exchange between the Johnston Center (an alternative, degree-granting program within the University of Redlands) and Hampshire. It had been initiated at Johnston by a few students who were concerned that Johnston was losing touch with the rest of the alternative education world. One of the Johnston students came to visit Hampshire for a week, and then for three weeks in January, I participated in a class she had organized at Johnston. The trip was a real eye-opening experience: I got an outside perspective on some of the same issues Hampshire was confronting. I'll return to that issue shortly, after a brief discussion of one of the other issues of the semester, my relationship with Gloria.
There were several times when I began to recognize that Gloria was not the woman I had expected her to be. However, I was sure that a little ``encouragement'' would be all she needed, for the differences were simply things that she had never thought about before, and it is natural for it to take a short time of thoughtful exposure for someone to learn something new.
The single biggest instance of this method of me changing her was my conviction about how clearly superior open relationships were to monogamous relationships. Gloria didn't seem to be against them. After all, we knew she was my ideal woman. It would simply be a matter of time before she could understand what I was talking about, and valued the same things I did.
Then perhaps two months into the fall semester, I found myself attracted to another woman. Percy. I don't know how fair it was for me to have a crush on her, for her sake, because at least half of the crush was that she reminded me of Jackie. And of course, I had to win her back! It was Percy's only semester at Hampshire (she was a visiting student).
Percy didn't seem particularly interested in me, and probably wasn't. But that made her that much more attractive, too. I told Gloria about her - and in fact, invited Percy to come dancing with Gloria and I. Gloria didn't seem to mind - in fact, she thought it sounded good - so I knew it would be great. We brought a boy Gloria knew, too, and it seemed pretty reasonable to me. Gloria surprised me by getting into the front seat, and so I sat in back with Percy - I'd expected the two women to sit in the back. Aside from far too many wrong turns by Gloria's friend Joe (who was driving) we made it to the dance alright, though it turned out to be a ``family dance'' not a contra dance - which means, basically, that it was lots of old people and little kids. I danced with Percy first, and then Gloria - nothing wrong with that, I didn't figure. And it didn't seem so bad to Gloria, either.
But then as we were leaving, Gloria seemed a little peculiar. Glassy-eyed, perhaps. Even a kind of desperate, pissed-off look. But she wasn't really sharing what was going on with her. I sat in the back with her, but she leaned the other way. It was getting worse by the second. I wasn't really sure. What was her problem? What was going on?
I don't remember anything else from the incident, except that she told me the next day that she and Joe both noticed that I had seemed very interested in Percy. No duh, I thought. Hadn't I explained that to her already?
Something similar happened once when my friend Jeremy and I were anticipating the arrival of the guest from Johnston. I was sitting in my room with Gloria was on my lap.
``So, Chris, do you think this woman is going to be sexy?'' Jeremy asked.
``I don't know, pal.''
``From the way you guys are talking,'' Gloria said, ``it sounds like this is going to turn into some kind of contest, to see who can sleep with her first.'' She said it so confidently, it seemed. I guess she was thinking more and more that open relationships wouldn't be so bad after all. Of course she was right, too; we were already in the contest. So I answered her.
``I win all the contests in this house! That's what I do, win contests.''
``C! Come on; you're not being fair to Gloria. What in the world are you talking about? How do you know you're not hurting her?''
Well, for one she wasn't saying that she was hurt by what I was saying. But I guess it was possible - how could I know? But a little pain was probably necessary, when growing. The whole point, I'd decided before even meeting Gloria, was eventual painlessness through honest and caring relationships without fear or jealousy. And a little pain on the way would be worth the amount it would remove in the long run.
``I guess it's not possible to always know these, things,'' I said. And Jeremy left to go upstairs to do some work on his division III.
The next time we confronted this issue, it was a lot more threatening.
Percy told me she would definitely be driving to San Francisco, because that's where she would be the next semester. She was going to leave about the beginning of January, and take less than a week for the whole trip. By this time, the woman from the Johnston Center had come and gone, and had talked me into going to visit Johnston for January. So, when Percy told me about her plans, I started scheming. Maybe I would drive out with Percy; and wouldn't this provide me with just exactly the kind of opportunity I wanted to get to know her better. I told Gloria, who didn't seem to be too surprised or nervous, and then continued scheming.
I was really not sure why exactly I wanted to drive with Percy. Did I want to get to know her? Well, that was at least partially true. Was it because I was interested in her as a replacement for Gloria? That didn't seem to be the case at all. Was I interested in the trip just to get to know her, regardless of what the relationship was? For instance, was I interested in the trip if I knew that she was not interested in any kind of a relationship with me? Here it turned out that I was not interested. I was definitely interested in a relationship. So the next questions I had to ask myself were whether I was really interested in Percy, or whether I was simply interested in exploring this idea of open relationship. And, so far as I could tell, it was the first. (To realize this, what I did was to imagine whether or not I would want to be in this kind of situation with any of several other women, whom I perceived as being interested in me. I was not interested, so I thought that in fact what I was interested in was some kind of intimacy; a kind of intimacy that was both sexual and personal; and that I was genuinely interested in this with Percy. Not because she was a woman, but because she was Percy, whoever that was.) So I decided. I would only really want to drive cross-country with her if she was interested in being personally and sexually intimate with me. (I assumed these things came together - for me, I felt that they had. In high school, Jackie and I had never been fully honest - personally intimate - whereas Laura and I had been, though only after we had become sexual.)
Before too long, I told Gloria. And I explained it pretty much the way I just explained it now, which was pretty much just the way I had thought it through. She got that look again, like she'd had in the car, steely-eyed; but she said nothing was really wrong when I asked. It was just that she did not want to go with me to the presentation I was going to. So I went alone.
When I returned, she was more visibly disturbed.
``Are you OK?'' I asked. She was definitely not. She was physically turned away from me, as she had been in the car that night.
``What are you thinking, Gloria? Is something wrong?''
``I've had a really hard time in the last two hours, Chris. You telling me what you wanted to do with Percy - before I met you, there was only one word for that. It was called cheating. I had never heard of this whole idea of `open relationships.' I've talked with three friends of mine here, on the hall, and they all said I should break up with you. They said you should forget it.''
Now that was a surprise! She was in a completely different ballpark than I thought. I didn't know what to do.
``You mean, you feel jealous?''
``It's not jealousy, Chris. It's like a physical pain in my stomach, like I've been punched, that I'm not sure if I can live with.''
``Yow. And what did you think of what your friends said?'' I wanted to strangle her friends.
``They just don't understand. But maybe they do. I can't decide; I know that I want to be in this open relationship with you, and I know they don't understand. They just don't know. I don't know. Oh, I don't know!''
I couldn't believe she wasn't crying; but she wasn't. She didn't seem to cry much, or at least to me. ``I don't know what to do, either, Gloria; maybe this weekend when we talk to my Mom in Vermont, we can figure something out.''
``I guess we can try,'' she said.
That weekend at my house, we did talk to my mom; in fact, talked to her extensively. Neither Gloria nor my Mom would give me an answer, though. Gloria (insisting that her feelings weren't jealousy), couldn't ``ask'' me to not do something I wanted to (though became very vocal about how she could not even consider anyone else when she was completely in love with me). Nor would she tell me what she wanted me to do, or what kind of relationship she eventually wanted to have. I had been assuming, of course, that she wanted to have the same kind that I had been discussing. What else could she possibly want, after all?
Mom couldn't help me out either. I suspect she was helpful just in being someone who was neutral about the whole thing, but actually she almost seemed to be getting a little bit of a kick out of the whole thing.
It took me some thinking, but finally I realized that I would sacrifice the possibility of any kind of relationship with Percy. It was hard - that was a part of me that I had to separate from. But it was necessary, because my caring for Gloria was more important than that. But just because I had that one figured out didn't mean that the problem went away. More like it, it just went away for the time being. And I never did tell Percy my feelings; simply told her I was not going to drive with her.
So that was the first set of adventures we had; shall we call them the pre-Christmas-break adventures? Or perhaps the fall term findings? Or early rumblings? Whatever we may choose, the clarity and true love was not quite as clear and simple as I had expected; and nowhere near as ideal as I had written about in my journals so many years before, or read about in my article.
The whole time, I was still carrying on an exchange of letters with Laura in Japan (which I shared with Gloria whenever she was curious, by the way). One of the popular subjects in our exchange was the subject of monogamous relationships; lately, it had been somewhat reinvigorated by me sending her a copy of the ``Possible Relationship'' article. Here's one of many letters from this particular exchange:
Dear Laura, early December, 1994It really doesn't bother me that you're not in love with me now. I'm not sure I understand your definition of it though. It kind of bothers me to hear things I misunderstood (I guess, the depth of feeling I once thought you had for me), whether they were from my own blindness or else from your lack of explanation. I think one thing you are suggesting is that you are a lot more mature now than you were one year ago, that you wouldn't let yourself act the way you did. You said six months ago how the benefits we derived from our relationship at your home did not outweigh the harm it did. Actually, I think your words were that it was ``Not Necessary.'' I suppose that is about when you became more mature?
I just read your sentence ``I tried promiscuity last year and didn't enjoy it!'' I wonder if in your opinion you've ever tried being completely honest, and whether you think that eventually you want your relationships to be completely honest. Hm...I don't mean that sarcastically; I am really wondering.
``Don't complain about being put in a category with Mit Davidson,'' you wrote. I think what hurts me is not that I am in the category ``Men Laura cares about but doesn't want a relationship with.'' I used to be so frustrated and lonely, Laura. And to hear you say that what we did that allowed me to see how this frustration and loneliness were not eternal was ``not necessary'' is what hurts. Well, something like that. I wish you would write me more about me, explain to me what it seems like my problem with these words is. I guess you must either not know or be too concerned about me feeling good in the short term so that you cannot risk saying what you know. Maybe I'll be able to figure it out what hurt me so much when you wrote that ``not necessary'' thing.
December 10. My birthday. Gloria and I just spent almost six hours in bed. Three hours of talking about what I can possibly do with myself. I'm feeling kind of desperate about the ``school thing.'' We decided that I have to take next semester off. Go live on a commune. We're going to talk to Herb on Monday. Meanwhile, I'm trying to talk the Farm Center into taking me on as a farm intern this summer through next fall.
Love, Chris
It was strange place in our relationship...In retrospect, I think Gloria could really see the benefits of getting out, but she wouldn't say or act on this because she needed me too much, and she didn't know how to say anything that might hurt someone else. So we awkwardly went to our respective homes for Christmas. Unfortunately, a little time apart didn't solve the problems.
A few days after Christmas, I picked Gloria up at the Boston Airport. But things were not good. She had that look again. It hurt me. I wanted to be close to her, to feel like she was really being open with me. But she wouldn't; she could only talk about the weather, or some dumb shit. I could see her churning, though; churning away, on her own plane, in her own world, where I was the enemy and not the ally or the self. It wasn't fair; or it wasn't true; or I didn't know what else it wasn't, but it wasn't the way I wanted her to be.
Gradually, she warmed up. Or maybe I warmed up, and let her in? We stopped on the car ride to my house at the Concord Inn, and ate some of their absolutely disgusting, and breathtakingly expensive, vegetarian pasta. I think Gloria paid. She liked to pay for things like that, and it certainly didn't bother me. Then we stopped another time on the car ride, right after one of those times when I told Gloria again how she ought to be what I wanted her to be, in this case, that she should be on the bike team with me. All I was asking was for her to do one race, and if she didn't like it, then she could quit. I just wanted her to have an open mind, and would trust her judgment after that. Needless to say, that hadn't been a particularly constructive dialogue. I took the next exit onto a strange road in rural New Hampshire, parked the freezing car in a commuter parking lot, and asked her to climb into the back seat with me, to see whether we could just be for a few moments, just hold each other and try to forget the rest. And for a few moments, I think we did.
The tension continued to permeate our days before I left for my month at the Johnston Center in California. Gloria, always worried about the possibility of pregnancy (actually, it seemed more and more clear to me, she was always scared of everything inside herself) was about to start the pill, or maybe she recently had; I don't remember specifically. Percy was still very much persent in any conversation, whether or not she was explicitly mentioned; and there was resentment on both sides. Gloria was talking some about how she was really unsure whether it was right for her to be involved with anyone at this time in her life. She was, after all, barely out of her last relationship. She talked some about how she felt completely powerless if she were attracted to a man; what would she do? She didn't know how to show someone that she was attracted to them, she said. So then is that what she needed, I asked, to pursue someone she was interested in? Maybe to see if she could do it in general? But she did not know.
New Years Eve brought freezing rain to the roads, and the two of us to the Dawn Dance, believe it or not back in the gym of the Northfield Mount Hermon school. We arrived late - maybe 10 or so - and celebrated our safe arrival by making love in the back of the freezing car. I have a suspicion now that I was always more excited than she over such parking-lot sexuality, but at the time, I was either too self-absorbed, or more likely not able to read her well enough to know that she was at least partially just being there for me. I could write extensively on the things I have learned regarding sex in relationships. Perhaps, however, this is not the place for that discussion.
The next night, Gloria and I were sleeping on the floor of the Thorpe House, at the Hampshire College Farm Center. We had a mattress from upstairs, and several warm blankets. And we had a lot to talk about. I was almost leaving for California. I could still see so much on Gloria's mind that she wasn't sharing, thought I couldn't see what. But then I got a vague notion that I might know what it was about. At the Dawn Dance the night before, there had been a commotion a few minutes before the exact new year. It was my first time at the New Year's dawn dance, so I was not exactly sure what was going on. A waltz started playing, and I looked had looked around for Gloria. She was dancing with some other man. Disappointed, I looked for a partner for myself, and quickly found one. She was someone I had danced with quite a few times before, and with whom I enjoyed dancing. Then the waltz was over, and everyone was rushing around filling up small plastic glasses with bubbly cider. Gloria had switched from her previous partner to my friend Jon, but would still not make eye contact so I'd assumed she was trying to avoid me for some reason. God knows what her problem was! I figured I would just drink the stupid cider and get on with it. So when I played back the events of the previous night to myself, I suspected that she might have assumed (as only she knows how), that the only way for her to get what she wanted was for me to give it to her; perhaps she thought that I wanted to avoid her at midnight. And I asked her. Was that what was bothering her? I was right. She cried and cried, saying how much she hurt all through her. And by the time she was done crying, she had said not only that, but also that she would not be able to go on with our relationship if I continued to explore the possibility of other women. I would have to decide. I could see that she was in pain; and I can hardly express how painful it was for me to decide to do what she needed when I thought I needed something different. But there was really never a question in my mind. Of course I would not see other women; it made me cry, too, though the words and the specifics of the evening are lost to me now.
And that was the note on which I left the East Coast; that was the clarity we had achieved, or not. In retrospect, I am not at all sure whether Gloria was pleased or not that I wanted to continue the relationship with her. It may well have been another desperate attempt to mask what she needed in what I wanted, another total failure of her trying to ask for what she needed.
I had been in California for about a week when I got a letter from Gloria. I opened it immediately, of course - I always do. It was going to be my first real letter from her. But immediately, I knew something was wrong. It was not that what she said was off; in fact, I hadn't even read anything yet. But something was simply wrong. Was this really Gloria's writing? Had she really written to me, so ... so obediently? The flow of the pen from one letter to the next was following no natural pattern that I recognized as human; and neither did the words themselves really speak from her heart. It was confusing, and devastating, and I didn't know what to do. It was the first time when I really recognized that there were two Glorias - the one whom I had created, out of my own dreams of Jackie and Laura, whose life I understood, who wrote in a fanatic cursive and filled every margin, whom I had been addressing every time I spoke or wrote; and the other, who had written me this letter, no doubt a person in her own right, but not the one I was seeing. Dazzled, and bewildered, I continued reading, continued thinking, and continued imagining. Could it be? Had I really created my own secret angel once again; or, perhaps more accurately to what I felt then, was I really alone after all? For how in the world could this Gloria who had written me this letter understand the things I was thinking about revolution as anything but strange, cute, or quaint (if not outright dangerous)? What did I want now? And what was? At last, these questions began to emerge in my mind, questions which would take 9 more months but would eventually tear apart the relationship.
Through the month, Gloria and I kept up an email dialogue about our relationship, and in particular, how monogamy related to unconditional acceptance. In the meantime, I was also learning a tremendous amount about the Johston Center.
My plan to spend time at the Johnston Center had emerged in large part from my frustration with several administrative/faculty efforts to redesign parts of the Hampshire academic experience. In particular, I felt that these efforts were completely context-less; as best I can tell, the rationale for all the proposed changes was faculty frustration linked to initial impressions of few faculty about a link between inefficient structure, faculty workload, and student isolation. And yet, no one at Hampshire had the slightest idea how other alternative colleges dealt with these problems. The plan was to forge ahead on our impressions without scientific analyses of the problems or the possibilities.
A month before I'd left for Johnston, several Johnston students had put together a packet of readings for me. I had read them all, including A History of Johnston College, a book by two founding Johnston Professors who were still employed there.
At Johnston, I met with many students and faculty, and I was incessantly probing their experience with their academic and governance system. In addition, I participated in a student-led class discussing kinds of alternative education. My reception at Johnston was very positive from both students and faculty - we all felt that we were learning from one another. Among other things, I was learning that several of the assumptions Hampshire was operating under were simply wrong - the most basic one being that an individualized education was necessarily isolating. Johnston had a slightly different system of graduation requirements and procedures, but clearly they were still individualized. And clearly, something was different at Johnston, in the structure of these requirements or Johnston's smaller size or the governance by consensus or the specific people involved, that significantly improved the way that students felt about themselves in the community. I continued to reevaluate these ideas, and several of them have found their way into my approaches to developing programs at Hampshire since then.
Just before my departure at the end of the month, I was having a discussion with Noah, a Johnston alumn, about how successful my visit had been.
``I wonder if there is a way to institutionalize some of this interaction, so that it continues to happen'' Noah said.
``That's a great idea,'' I answered. ``A Network of Alternative Colleges. We could start with little exchanges, work up to longer student exchanges and some faculty exchanges, and maybe hold a conference.''
``How could we start something like that?''
``I guess it would take a really dedicated student, someone who still had at least a year or more left at one of our schools, someone who understood why this Network would be valuable.''
Noah looked at me. I could see what he was going to say. But I didn't know how to initiate something this big! How could I possibly? He said it though. ``Well, Chris, maybe that should be you!''
There was no way out of that! He was right. But it took a few months before I had the faintest idea how to go about it. In the meantime, I spent two months finishing a document describing my learnings from Johnston (``Johnston College, Johnston Center, and a context for Hampshire College'' - some of which is included in the Appendix). I also refocused my education once again. Computer science, I realized, was interesting, but (as I had seen in the summer) I could get paid to learn it, if I ever wanted to learn more. I ought to spend my time in college doing something that I couldn't get paid to do elsewhere! So before leaving Johnston, I asked the advice of everyone there. What have they read lately, in any area, that had been only possible because of working with an expert? I got lots of advice.
Returning to Hampshire, I set out to test out several courses to see what I might be able to learn, and ended up with two literature courses: Dostoevsky at Hampshire, and Goethe at Smith. Both had lots of reading, so I decided that those would be my only two official courses for the spring. The Goethe course, it turned out, was a senior seminar of 7 student, with readings and classes all in German; I decided to take it pass-fail. And did I ever learn a lot! History, german language, philosophy, religion...the Professor was amazing. I think I got as much out of the course as the rest of the students combined. Except for one, they were all native speakers or senior German majors who had recently returned from a year in Germany. And for the most part, they just weren't interested in what was going on. Well, I couldn't live their lives for them.
At Hampshire, the number of semesters one stays enrolled is somewhat up to the student. One progresses through the system by completing a series of contracts, some of which have mimimum time limits. For instance, a student must be enrolled for a semester and a half after filing the division III, in addition to fulfilling the division III contract, in order to pass division III and graduate.
About a week before the mid-semester deadline for filing division III in that spring (1995), I realized that I was at last going to really take a leave of absence the following year. And I wanted the flexibility so that when I returned, I could return for only one more semester, if I so chose. This meant I would have to pass my division II, as well as file my division III - all within a week. Herb, who was the chair of my division II committee, was frustrated and a little bit helpless. On the one hand, he wanted to trust my methods of getting my education; on the other hand, he was terribly worried that I ``wouldn't learn anything.'' I called several nights in a row, insisting that I should pass division II. Finally, Gloria took the phone away from me and convinced him! After the hassle of rewriting my division II contract the night before the final deadline, I finally got the signatures on my new division II contract and the division II pass form. Then, with about an hour to go before the final deadline, I wrote up a division III describing a comparative study of communal childraising in America and Israel. Fifteen minutes to go, and I ran to another building to get Herb's signature - but he refused to sign as the chair of the Committee, even temporarily. Luckily, with about two minutes to go, I ran into Ken Hoffman, who was a little surprised at my request but willing to be the chair. And after a two-minute conference, we headed down to the Advising Office to turn in the form (phew!). So that is how this paper started out: a study of communal childraising!
Aside from some retrospective deliberations with Herb about what my division II meant, and how we should evaluate my performance, the second half of the semester continued with same three main themes as the first half: working to apply my learnings from Johnston, participating in two literature courses, and figuring out with Gloria whether we wanted a relationship or not.
There were several fronts on which I made attempts at applying the gleanings from Johnston. One was meetings with the President and Dean of Faculty of Hampshire to discuss some ideas I thought would help at Hampshire - in particular, optional class contracts and evaluations given to all students, not only the ones who ``passed'' the courses. These were partially a response to needs I felt at Hampshire (for instance, that students were doing things to be evaluated, rather than to learn). They couldn't relate to my descriptions of problems at Hampshire, though. Problems? What problems?
I also decided at this time to try starting the Network of Alternative Colleges. I wasn't quite sure how to go about it - I emailed a bunch of people from several alternative colleges whose names I found on the internet, made an internet home page as if it already existed, and started an email list. And all of a sudden it existed.
Finally, I discussed the possibility with many students and some faculty of a subcollege within Hampshire, to be a more intimate and more experimental living-learning community (at the time, using the name Radical Departure, borrowed from the conclusion to The Making of A College). I wasn't quite sure how to make it happen, though, and no one else really made it happen for me although I did generate some discussion on campus.
Meanwhile, Gloria and I broke up and were back together several times. I was technically committed to a monogamous relationship with her, and did not break that expectation. But I wasn't exactly pleased with that arrangement; and Gloria wasn't exactly pleased with me not being exactly pleased. We were so dependent on each other.
Laura, meanwhile, had written that she was coming back from Japan, without Carl. I wrote to her noting the possibility of visiting her during the summer as part of the traveling I wanted to do, and she replied that I should come for as long as possible. That is where we pick up with a few excerpts from letters (this one, I think, right after one of times when Gloria and I had broken up).
Dear Laura,April 18, 1995 So my summer and fall are very much in flux still. Don't know where I will be, but I just got a letter from friends in California at the Johnston Center, and I think I will come see you all sometime. I was surprised that you wrote that I should come for as long as possible! I suspect you thought the maximum I could part from Gloria would have been a limiting factor, but there are no longer many limiting factors. I wonder if this will make you want to withdraw your offer. Certainly I expect your next letter will have some mention of friendship and ``realistic'' expectations. Or is it not OK for me to have written ``certainly I expect'' like that?
I am going to have a brief discussion of Chris before I go into Chris and Laura. Chris probably has similar needs to Laura: intelligent companionship, intimacy (honesty), sexual/romantic attention. Right now he is sure he will get the first from Laura. The third seems not to fit well with Laura's needs. I am currently trying to track down a Smith woman from near your home, so I am working to see if I can get those needs met elsewhere in other words. If I can, this analysis would suggest that we won't have any problems. If I can't, will I focus that need onto Laura? (I appreciate your letter SO MUCH because it has allowed me to be frank without fear.) I really don't know. I have confidence in my ever-improving ability to direct my feelings. Especially if there are other interesting women I can devote some time to chasing!
OK, I think I'm finally ready. We both have our own theories about sexuality and intimacy, and how they're related. We both also know from experience how easy it is to slip back in to old relationship, often ignoring or forgetting why they hadn't worked. (I have Mindy where this has happened and feel how it could happen with either Dana or Suzy Henderson.) I also have a lot of confidence that we can make any relationship between us wonderful. We had a very weird set of circumstances last time and it was SUPER. Some parts weren't perfect, but I think we both learned, both got good stuff, intimacy, companionship, etc. You and I are so smart, so honest, and such good, caring people; we have a lot of energy and a lot of energy for each other.
I think your idea about not living together might be good, but I don't think we can really know or decide now. I like the idea of not being too intense, especially at first. So maybe you can look for some really cheap room for me somewhere, or I can sleep in a tent. One thing we might also consider then (but don't put too much thought to it now) could be less intense but occasional sexuality. There is a little part of me that hopes we decide to be physical, but I am not coming so that that might happen. You are completely right that we will decide together. So shall I start out staying for a week in the youth hostel and go from there? I'm going to make the return flight for the 25th of August, and we can go from there.
Well, let me try to write all this again. Here and there, we can talk rationally about the ``balances'' for each of us separately. Yet the question arises for me whether this kind of thinking can be maintained when we are closer. What was it that made us decide last time to be sexual? Could it be that we began to see out relationship needing a balance, rather than each of us separately needing our own balance? I don't know.
Yes, yes, I confirm for myself and you that I respect you and your love for Carl entirely, and I'm convinced that we can be honest, and not create damaging expectations.
Next Day. I agree completely with your idea (about Gloria and I) that relationships change, not end. Sometimes, it's useful to just say ``end,'' though, not because that's what's really happening in the big picture, but more because it's easier than ``the relationship is changing to be less intense - giving it a break...`` I agree with you completely.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Maybe I am lying to myself. Shit, I think I am. Shit, shit, shit. Isn't this the exact same situation that happened last time? I was lying to myself then, too. And for your benefit, just the same. I remember how my Mom told me at the Dec 10 1993 contra dance that I was obviously in love. If you remember, Dana (who I was supposedly in a relationship with) was also at that dance. Mom didn't even have to say who. She called me back the next day to make sure I understood it was you. I had. But yet still I maintained the conviction that I could do what was right for you - simultaneously, I was in love, and not. Then when I arrived, this lying to myself began to eat at me. You remember how I cried at the beach? And I kept saying I could do what's best for you? I just reread a few paragraphs ago, and I am so clueless. Saying what you wanted to hear, I'm sorry. I can't believe I am so blind. Here some woman invites me across the country so she can talk and dance with me, for a long time. I try and fool myself into the idea that there are lots of other things I want to do there besides see her, that I will be able to get over my own needs for sexuality. Finally, to top it off, this is the same exact thing I've said to myself before, to the same woman's call!! Don't I learn anything?
Love, Chris
We decided to give it a try. I think there was still a part of me that thought Laura really might be the woman for me. Gloria certainly hadn't been interested in hearing about that part of me, though, and I don't know how aware I was of it. I was not expecting when planning the trip to have sex with Laura - it seemed from Laura's letters that she was convicted not to be sexual at all. Once Gloria heard about my plans to go, though, she was absolutely convinced that sex was both my expecation and Laura's, whether or not we admitted it. She always knew just how to make herself miserable, it seemed. I felt like all I could do was to just let go and let her feel her own pain. In the mean time, I planned for my summer of travel and my year of leave.