Well, I finished the last Narnia book about a month ago and I've been meaning to write about my reactions to it. You know, I really cried at the end. It was so moving and powerfully descriptive. So Aslan was God, and the new Narnia - heaven. It's fantastic how Lewis can write a book of equal appeal to children, adults and ages in between. The Chronicles of Narnia will be a must-read for my kids.
And it was. :-)
I cooked up a new diet for all us chubby people around here. I call it the "Masters and Johnson Special" and it's based on the calorie consumption of an individual orgasm. We really got hysterical about it one night when Terry suggested that we start lining guys up at the door right away. Think of all the weight we could lose in just a couple of hours!
Now for a long entry: Christmas Vacation!!! The most fantstic and beautiful holiday of my entire life. To start off...Don picked up Amy and I on Friday evening, the 19th. By that time I was sick and tired of everyone, bored and very anxious to leave. When we got home and began to talk to the family, I felt quite strange and different from when I had last been home a few weeks before. Much more liberal and aware than I had been. It certainly was nice to be home though. Especially wonderful was holding Don close at the dorm that night and knowing that we'd have 2 whole weeks together. Wow, what a feeling.
I'm left with so many impressions of those 2 weeks...the fluster of Christmas shopping, the excitement of seeing the lights and decorations, the display on St. Luke's Lane! Holiday songs -- Don's Nat King Cole favorite and my "Sleigh Ride". Sugar cookies, egg nog, watching Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", Donnelly Outdoor Advertising commercials -- "Singing outdoors, singing outdoors, sing, sing, singing outdoors; it's the time of the year, Christmas is here, so sing (Donnelly), sing (Donnelly), sing (Donnelly), sing (Donnelly), sing -- sing'in outdoors."
Snow! Ice! Sleet! Rain! Mike and Jackie, Judy and Coleman, Joie and Danny, Barbara and Arnie, Linda and Rick, Barry and Sue, Larry and Debbie. "The Sterile Cuckoo", "Viva Max", "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice". Come Saturday Morning, Venus, Walkin' in the Rain, Early in the Morning, Na Na Hey Hey, Kiss Him Goodbye and the song by Jefferson. Super sensual sex and our Harry Little special. Taping, baking, cozy fires. Purple owls, candles, puzzles. I got pinned!
Goldie oldie films of the Hyman clan, spaghetti and garlic bread, B.F.D., Tommy. Pizza, elephants, pepperoni and salami. Diaries, pistachio nuts, sleeping in the den. Richard, Grandma ("Gee, Gramps, was my mother really an accident?), Sally (and Sally and Sally and Sally). Dr. Lizansky and the episode of the banana cream pie. (Our second box of raincoats, hallelujah!). Drinking, mmnn... driving down to Annapolis and zipping back up, obnoxious ol' monkey Stanley, surprise call from Betsi. JCT's new bag -- lying on his back in the middle of the second floor hall and staring at the ceiling.
Birthday cake, cold cuts, deviled eggs, meal worms. comparative kissing, misslehead, iapiadia. I wish I could somehow record the pervading spirit and warmth that characterized the whole vacation. Don and I grew ever so much closer and I really and truly fell in love with him all over again. With his mind free from school pressures, he opened up in a way I'd never seen before. He wasn't afriad to show his anger and our 2 fights were well-fought with satisfactory and loving results. As Jackie said, "It's easier to like Don now if you already know him and easier not to like him if you don't."
It's true. His personality is becoming more defined, and it seems as though he's more aware of himself and his ambitions. I can sense his moods, his reactions and very frequently now we find ourselves saying the same things at the same time! Don's always had a sort of rugged determination but now it's less destructive to him personally then it was. While still "not satisfied with mediocrity" he is reaching a point where his expectations and capabilites coincide.
I came home on the 19th looking for a quiet, familiar place to lick my wounds and reassure myself. I actually received much more than simple reassurance. Renewed faith I guess you could call it. The few hours I spent alone with Jackie made us both realize what kindred spirits we really are, transcending time and distance. College has given me a new perspective on the old gang. I can see them all more clearly and am more appreciative, as well as more critical.
I think that the high point of everything had to be New Year's Eve with Larry and Debbie. "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" was just unbelievably fantastic. It made the evening. You could appreciate it on two levels, so that it was both funny and serious at the same time. Two things in particular struck me as worthwhile. The first was a statement made at the sensitivity encounter group by a 64 year old man named Conrad. When asked his reason for attending the session, he replied that he wanted to continue to develop and grow as an individual. Quite admirable for a guy his age, huh?
Reading this now is absolutely hysterical. "a guy his age". Amazing what we knew at 18. ;-)
The second thing was emphasized repeatedly and that was a desire to have people (among their close friends) say what they feel instead of what they think. The end of the movie also carried a strong message when they played, "What the World Needs Now (is Love Sweet Love)" and showed the different peoples of the world moving among each other and stopping to look, really look, into the eyes of the persons they passed. We left the theatre smiling, laughing, our arms around each other.
Back at the apartment we saw the new year in with Mom and Dad and Jeff and we were all so happy and close. When the folks went to bed, we had a fantastic experience sitting and holding hands with our eyes closed in a little circle on the den floor. It's amazing how much easier it is to speak your emotions from the darkness behind your closed eyes...
I loved having Don over the Hymans that Sunday nite with the family. He's so much a part of our nutty ol' clan. I could probably go on and on but I have work to do. Tune in later, group!
January 8th
I just re-read The Harrad Experiment and I feel as strongly about it as I did last summer. I do have somewhat of a different perspective on it now though, and I can see where Rimmer got sidetracked in certain of his descriptive passages. However, I still experience that familiar sense of excitement and participation while reading it; maybe that's because I'm such an idealist. I incorporate a great many idealistic values in this journal because I want to build my life around them. I want to work at shaping my future so that I actually live my beliefs and philosophies.
I'd say that I've been wonderfully successful at doing this!
January 17th
McCall's magazine came out with an excellent issue last month. It centered around individual conceptions of what the "good life" is, and I thought I'd include some:
"The Good Life exists, here on earth: it exists in the act of loving." -- Joyce Carol Oates
"My good life has four cornerstones: family, words on paper, the world of nature, and privacy...The Good Life for a country or a planet allows for as many individual Utopias as the social fabric can endure without being destroyed. The worst despotisms are those that legislate the good life. They are morally monstrous when they say (as they have) that the Good Life must be racially "pure", religiously unified, or politically monolithic. They are moderately fantastic when they concern themselves with hair length, the numbers of letters in words, modes of lovemaking and the square inches of G-strings...The four cornerstones might be a little flat without a spire. I do not wish upon you my good life. I wish for you what my good life brings to me." -- Jessamyn West
"...to have the courage to do nothing but what we really believe in, and to be nothing but loved." -- Carol Ruth Sternhell
"...a world full of compassion and concern." -- Coretta Scott King
"The Good Life is not an absolute; it is subjective and can be defined only in personal terms. Apart from private affections and a reasonable degree of material comfort, which I take it are axiomatic for everyone, the two fundamentals without which for me there could be no good life are freedom of the individual and the enjoyment of art and nature. The first means freedom of thought and expression, freedom to develop one's own capacities and find satisfaction in one's own function. The second - the aesthetic value, or in a word, beauty - is a source of pleasure as important as sex. Art is the only thing that sustains faith in the human kind. -- Barbara W. Tuchman
"The Good Life exists only when you stop wanting a better one. It is the condition of savoring what is, rather than longing for what might be." --
Marya Mannes
"My favorite pastime is to sit on a bench and watch the different people go by. I watch and listen. I enjoy doing things that are not forced on me; I like reading books of my own choosing. I love to walk alone on the beach with my own thoughts. I like the right to think, speak and do what is right for me. If I think something is wrong, I like the right to do something about it. No man can live in a restricted world and come out of it without hate...The Good Life would be doing what I enjoy, living for the moment, taking things as they come. It wouldn't be sacrificing the present for the future, but being a part of each moment and relating to yourself, others, nature, even objects around you. It's being aware of the transcendence of each moment and each experience and not letting life slip by."
"One aspect of the Good Life is not losing sight of simplicity, not taking one's self so seriously that one forgets to be happy or silly or childlike once in a while...The Good Life is being happy, just because you're alive. Knowing you are loved and having someone to love. Being able to see reality in whatever way reality is to you, without someone saying it's not real. It's being capable of living alone, but never wanting to. It's being able to escape from everything but not needing to..."
"The first day of spring, sitting in front of the fireplace with the right person, people who will take a chance, conversations that will strip people's masks away, music that makes you want to dance, friends who appreciate the true depth of friendship, physical love in its proper context, people with the ability to be emotionally moved by either words or an ideal, barefoot walks through green grass, professors who speak to you as an equal, minds not chained by prejudice, thoughts that are well-spoken, sharing a discovery, sharing love...The Good Life is finding an ultimate purpose in living."
Once there is peace, the Good life will be the freedom to choose. not the choice between one danger or another, between existence and exile, but the choice of the good things...Not the absence of worries, but to worry about things which one can solve. Not to be idle, but to be fulfilled at work; not to have total freedom, but self-imposed discipline...(How tragic it is to think that most elements of the Good Life are nature-given, while all the obstacles on the way to it are man-imposed." - Yael Dayan
The Good Life is love, any way you can get it - or give it...Unless you lovesomeone, nothing makes sense. The more people you love, the more sense it makes...The Good Life is smiling at the world -- and laughing at yourself. (After all, who's funnier than you?)
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I just finished reading Stranger again completely through. It's been awhile since the last time and to tell the truth, the story line is slightly absurd. I still agree whole-heartedly with the basic "Thou Art God" concept and the development of communication as emphasized in the water brother relationship, but otherwise...I guess it's kind of humorous to look back on how we regarded that book as some sort of bible.
As I said about Harrad my perspective on it has changed also, as with Prop 31. But aside from the relative validity of the stories, I'm beginning to question the practicality of the hypothesis. Idealistic as I am, I'm starting to doubt the possibility of 2 or more couples being able to switch spouses without jealousy or favoritism. Communal-type living is one thing; I buy that. But as far as sex in a "corporate marriage", I just don't know. Maybe jealousy has been bred into me or something, but I don't think that I could ever honestly say that I wouldn't mind having Don care for someone else as much as he cares for me.
I enjoy developing close relationships with other couples and the playful intimacy that follows. Sex to me though, in the final analysis, is private and personal. Another thing, which came up during a discussion that I had with Caroline, is a new awareness of the financial problems and other considerations involved in a corporate marriage. A legal ceremony would still imply some sort of dependency that would be threatened if one husband or wife died, or simply tired of the arrangement. At least there is more "freedom" in a communal situation.Iif one person or couple decided to leave, they could do it without too much deprivation to the others involved.
"To read is to admit that others can see." -- Joseph Charles Terry (JCT)
January 20th
I have seen the light! While talking to Jo this afternoon, I finally figured things out without realizing that I was doing so. For the longest time I could never understand how she could share secrets and write chummy little notes to Terry while at the same time insisting that we were as close as ever. If we were as close as she claimed, then why didn't she write notes, etc. to me? Well, it suddenly dawned on me that we have developed two, actually three, entirely different relationships in here.
Joann, when she's with Terry, is essentially a light, "surface-type" person. While together, their conversations are usually limited to their problems with guys, food preferences, or the activities of the neighbors. Joanne and I, on the other hand, find ourselves speaking in a more serious vein. So, I see now that Jo's activities with Terry are no reflection what-so-ever on our friendship. Each of us, with one another, has unconsciously developed a certain special type of communication with our own special "code" and set of rules. Ideally I wish that we could all be together on the same level but I see now that this is impossible.
The past month or two has been chock-full of insights and revelations. I've learned a couple of interesting things about myself -- mainly that I'm corny as hell. Seriously though, I've also discovered a creative re-awakening and new enthusiasm for learning in me. I think that the love Don and I share has matured a great deal and I've experienced a special feeling of personal independence. Groovy! (as Cathy would say).
Exams -- "UP AGAINST THE WALL!!!"
January 30th
I'm writing by candlelight now, sitting on the floor by the lounge chair. "Scarborough Fair" is playing softly and the room has an almost tangible warmth. Fires fascinate me -- especially the hypnotic flickering of a candle. The wax drips in delicate little globs down past the ridges on the bottle.
My thoughts now are "Cloudy" and I only wish that I could capture this moment on paper without the threat of someone suddenly breaking the spell. These few minutes or hours of peaceful thought and wonderment are quite rare these days.
When I first came back here last Wednesday, I immediately detected a subtle difference somehow. I wasn't sure what it was except that I felt energetic and restless. We saw "Monterey Pop" again, and the movie, plus the fresh, chilled night air generated a carefree, come-alive feeling. That night was the first time I became aware of a premonition that second semester is gonna be much different than the first.
I feel as though I'm waking up to those old creative urges and the need to explore and break away. For five months I was carried along, without any resistance, by the unpredictable tides of new people and events. Gradually however, my feet are finding solid ground, and I can stand among the breakers offshore and take stock of my surroundings. I feel confident in my newly acquired strength of defining the relativity of relationships and confidence begets a certain level of (acquired- ease).
For the first time in months, I want to run in the rain, roll down hills, fingerpaint, color, laugh at nothing, smile at everyone and be free. Free to discover the new me and what it is that makes me want to grab the whole world and hug it to me. I may be corny, idealistic or cute to different people but in my own way I find myself reaching out instead of being preoccupied with my so-called "image" or whatever. To hell with the neighbors and Terry's crap -- I'm moving past those stubborn old roadblocks.
I want to see the zoo, Congress, the Smithsonian, the Mint. I want to buy photography magazines, do collages and visit Embassy parties. I want to offer Don an individual who's beginning to discover who she really is, instead of stagnating in a pool of superficiality. School's taken on a new sort of meaning -- I want to lear JUST for the sake of learning! What a wild idea, and totally foreign to a large percentage of this college community, I'm sure.
"Knowledge is more than equivalent to force." -- Samuel Johnson
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