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Summer on the Road

I had several goals for my year of leave: to discover whether or not I needed an institution to educate myself, to see whether or not teaching was a direction I wanted to go in my life, to figure out what to do for my division III, and to write as much of it as possible.

I'd managed to be selected (at least partially thanks to a contact of my advisor) as a ``student fellow'' to attend a conference called ``Society and the Future of Computing.'' This meant that the conference would pay for my trip out and back to Colorado. I still had around six hundred dollars left from the previous year's computer work, and together with having much of my trip paid-for, this meant that I would not have to work at all while travelingn.

When the end of the school-year came, Gloria and I decided that I would come visit her in Minnesota for a week and a half on my way to the computer conference. So on May twenty-second, 1995, I boarded the bus in White River Junction, Vermont, and rode alone to Springfield, Vermont. I wrote a letter to Laura as I rode, thinking that I should get out anything I had to say to her before Gloria joined me for the next twenty-four hours of the bus trip. Here it is (the first parts of the letter are from several weeks before)

Dear Laura,

I got your May 12 letter this morning, and I'll try to call you on the phone this evening. Your letter was wonderful. I'm so glad you are in my heart and my life.

First, I want to tell you what is going on with Gloria and I. My viewpoint, of course. Three issues right now. 1) Gloria was coming out of a 3-year relationship when she met me; 2) she wasn't prepared for the kind or quality of thinking I engaged in - not that she's not really smart, but she just hadn't thought about the subjects as intensely (communication styles, for instance - she didn't understand that it could possibly be different ways of communicating, rather than my desire to hurt her, when we had a miscommunication. This is because her school, parents, and previous boyfriend just didn't question the way mine do, or I do.) 3) I want to see more of the world right now, am ready to go on in a way and see what I can find. These last two things all cause her to feel like a failure to some degree or other, which is perhaps another theme. What she says she needs sometimes is a chance to be single, and to develop herself and her own self-confidence. As it is, in the relationships she really needs a lot of security (less questioning, more traditional love and some mind-reading in a partner) none of which fit who I am right now. A question of mine seems like an attack to her, when I don't work the social graces just right. She feels rejected, but can't or won't make the effort to explain that ``she was hurt'' when I did something - she says she can't do that because it wouldn't be coming from me.

May 23. On the bus. A few days ago, you and I talked on the phone again, about your adventures with other men. I wasn't very surprised, though the news wasn't expected either. I remember how in a few months you went from wondering whether your non-exclusive impulses were because of a lack of self-love, to saying that you were certainly an exclusive-type person who had finally discovered herself through self-love. Or something like that. One time, you described yourself one way, and made some comment like ``but these are just words, and if I put them all in a jar, shook it like dice, and threw it on the table, they'd say something completely different.'' I think that was kind of what happened. It hurt me some to have your ideas about our physical intimacy change, you may remember. It went from an experession of love to meeting your self-love deficiencies. But that is another story.

What are some other ways to view yourself? Could it be that you are physically exclusive when you're with Carl, but not when you're not with him? Sounds elementary, but could that be? I don't think my own exclusivity is dependent on the proximity of others. I'm not exclusive, and that's it. When I'm kissing Gloria, I don't have the need to be kissing someone else, but I know that if she left the room I wouldn't have any problem doing it!

I've been trying hard to give her the security she needs, but I realize that isn't the role I want to be in right now. Though I love her very much, I know I cannot give her what she needs without completely compromising my own needs and pretty much marrying her.

Hm, people who are really exclusive don't view it as selfish, but I do. I view it as a need for a certain kind of property/security because of a lack of self-confidence. I try to keep this judgment to myself nowadays; doesn't seem to help Gloria much to share it!! I try not to call other people selfish for this reason, but the idea just keeps asserting itself. It's too bad Gloria can't really accept who I am; she wasn't mature enough, I sometimes think, and that doomed our relationship. I put my whole self out and demand it be accepted, I guess. And I accept everyone else's whole self, and encourage them to do what they think is right for them. The thing that's weird is that this doesn't fit Gloria well. She wants to feel not that I love her completely despite her differences from me, but that she meets all my needs, that I love her because she's her, and that I am infatuated with her and never think about anyone else.

Always lightning. Love, Chris

I waited at the Springfield, Massachusetts Greyhound terminal for a couple hours, and then just in time Gloria showed up. The two of us boarded the southbound bus and wound our way around to Minneapolis. It was a brief relapse into a relationship with few hangups, quite wonderful really. And then before I knew it, I was off again to the computer conference and beyond.

I continued to exchange letters with both Gloria and Laura, and some phone calls with Gloria. Gloria's phone calls and letters soon became desperate and accusatory, telling me how I was failing to treat her well but in the mean time not treating me well herself. It was hard for me to take her seriously, even. Sometimes I tried to explain how she was treating me the same way she claimed I was treating her, but that didn't help. Ignoring the situation didn't work either. Nothing helped that mess.

Finally, a month after leaving Minneapolis, after traveling slowly through Colorado and Utah, quickly through Arizona, slowly through Mexico and California, and quickly through Oregon and Washington, I was at last arriving at Laura's.

My directions said down, down, down the hill, up, up, up the other side, a left on N street, right onto Chestnut, and the house on the right at the top of that hill. And finally Eric turned that last turn onto Chestnut Street, past the wild thimble-berries I would come to know so well, and his car bounced and grumbled up the last section of road that lay between Laura and I. I unloaded my bags from the car, assembling my pile right there next to the van. Banjo, frame backpack, little backpack. Eric got back into the van and took off to complete his trip to Port Angeles, and just in time Laura came running down the stairs to hug me to death and tell me all about her late-night dancing at the Fiddle Tunes Festival. A few more freckles than I remembered her having (the summer sun does that to her, she later told me), and a few squint-marks on the sides of her eyes. No doubt her freckles would not be the only thing that was different, but it was the first reminder to me that as always I was more full of expectations than I expect.

But she was still Laura. She was so delighted about the Fiddle Tunes Festival; so delighted about me; so excited to show me the letter she had written me in anticipation of my arrival; so excited to make sure I remembered that I had to find myself another place to live, sooner rather than later; so excited to tell me all about her job and her coworkers. Lucky for me, she was also ``so tired'' that she barely managed to get through the first few of those before nodding off for a couple more hours. I read her letter.

Dear Chris, July 1

I got your letter which dealt mostly with your relationship with Gloria. After much consideration of my own relatinship with Carl, and some very insightful conversation with my friends here, I came to some realizations that might help you.

I'm sure you have been told, and probably understood, that one should not want to (or feel it is necessary to) change the person they are committed to. A relationship based on a desire to transform someone is not a solid relationship. There is so much push and pull that it can't rest, can't balance, can't hold its own.

I'm almost sure that you are well aware of all that. (If not, where have you been?) So the question really is, why do you, sometimes, and Gloria, sometimes, feel so compelled to make things work out? I think I could list some reasons, and you could find some more to add to the list. You love each other, of course, and there is a lot you have shared, and you have more to learn from each other. You don't want to hurt her. It's nice to have a girlfriend. There's no one else she wants anyway. Of course, there is the hope, sometimes very strong, that things will get better - and then won't you be glad you didn't throw it away?

Add your own reasons to the list. They are all valid reasons, and they all need to be considered. Think a minute.

So how about letting go? Now just wait. Don't go back to that list of reasons not to. We are finished considering them for now. Consider letting go. Consider letting Gloria stand alone. Consider yourself being no one's man. Imagine the rubber bands between you being let go of on both ends (not broken, just released). There now.

Breathe deeply, swing your arms out wide, look around. Wave to Gloria (you can smile, or blow her a kiss, if you like). Dance around a bit. Now, let her grow and change, if she will. It is not your responsibility to assist her. She probably knows what she needs to work on. How about yourself? Can you learn to be more accepting, or more sensitive to subtle cues about feelings that people often show, in place of words? (It is not exactly a lack of honesty on their part, just a different form of expression, easier for them, harder to interpret).

If you change, and if she changes, and if all those reasons to hold on are strong truths that last, then you may someday arrive at a point where coming together again would be joyful and fulfilling, and the relationship that you created would be a healthy one.

If not, what have you lost? All the fun of holding on and struggling to make things work? All the effort you put in to growing and changing? No! Because you, and she, will have grown on your own, and not out of obligation to one another. You will be improved people, for any relationship and yourselves.

While part of letting go means you are no longer under any promises not to get involved with other people, I think that for the separation to be worth while, it's best not to go plunging into another relationship. She might, if her confidence is wounded and she is afraid to stand on her own again, but it should not be your concern. If she is so weak, she is not strong enough to be your woman. Yet. Someday, maybe.

July 4. Now you are almost here (tomorrow!), so I will end this letter with the end of the page. I am so excited to be with you again!

Love, Laura

She was right about Gloria and I, though it seemed simpler on paper. I was embarassed. And so I did all I could for Gloria, accepting as much of the blame and letting go.

Laura and I quickly found grounds for our own conflict, things that in and of themselves don't make any sense as conflict, like battles never do; but they came and went, never fully revealing, solving, or overcoming the deeper tensions that wars so bizarrely express. Laura, for instance, found fault with my plan to wear a skirt without underwear to one of the dances, precipitating a near-brawl on the dance floor, she insisting that I should at long last stop pushing everyone to the limit of their petty moralities because it's just not up to me, and me for my part attacking her right to attack, while insisting that I was right just the same, that these Victorian attitudes covered up a lack of joy, not an abundance of it.

That was our special war again, albeit this time in different clothing than I expecfted. We, like all quarrelers, saw only the clothing, but boy did we see it clearly! I could not then admit that for so many years I had been lying to myself about Laura, too; it was not only Gloria whom I had constructed my own compatible version of, but also this other woman, just as helpless in the face of my secret manipulations of who I chose to think of her as. What about those times when I had seen that Victorian side? When she put on just these shoes or just those? When she insisted that really she did want to be monogamous with this character in Japan? When she said she really did like to learn in classes, and from professors, and that she didn't think there was anything wrong with those things? I continued quite naturally to see these things as the temporary problems caused by the company she was with. Interesting, of course; apparent, quite; but truly Laura, I said they were not. And I continued to grind away at these Victorian vices (or ``normalities,'' or whatever word you prefer), not making quite the extent of progress that I desired, but certainly making some (right?). It was hard work to help her, as it had been with Gloria; but someone had to do it. In the name of humanity, those I loved must be freed from their barbarisms. Freed, freed, freed. Freed, freed, freed.

This tension proceeded to amplify somewhat; other things got in the way or hampered or even stopped the frustation; or who even knows what else happened. Something was not working. On top of it all, Laura had been having a friend of hers sleep over, and they had just had sex for the first time when I arrived. What a bitch, was all I could think. No sex with me; well, that was something I could deal with if not rightly think correct, because she said previously that she was so in love with Carl and frankly, not interested in sex, and it wouldn't be right for her because she needed to be completely in the center of her own life. But with all that having been said to me, and then go and have sex with someone else the day before I arrived. Now that was enraging, or unflattering; I can not disentagle all the emotions.

And then so shortly one day, as we were nearing almost a week after my arrival, and nearing the time when we were going to attend the Vancouver Folk Music Festival with her friend Mit Davidson, she spontaneously said that our problem might well be sexual. Well, I said, it might well be, but what in the world were we going to do about that? Of course she wasn't necessarily prohibiting sex, she said. Interesting, I said; your letters seemed to. But of course ``that was a long time ago,'' she said.

And so that is how things began to come around for the brief period of communication before the final recurrance of storm drove me back to my distant East Coast, perhaps where I belonged at that point. But I am getting ahead of myself again; and this present was exciting enough, there were questions and answers to uncover, assumptions to dissipate. The questions, you see, had to begin to turn their focus from the outside to the inside...And that is neither something easy nor something quick.

I took up baking for an afternoon, and before long there were two round loaves of whole wheat bread for me to be proud of; though before I had any chance to sink my teeth in either of them, Laura had them packed up and hidden away. ``For the Folk Festival,'' she said. ``For the Folk Festival,'' I agreed.

The next morning we left Washington and crossed into Canada on the way to the festival and left some of our worries at the border. Something was going right. Was it that she was different? That I was? Who had made what move, and how had it done what it was doing? But it did seem that our terrible problems were somehow becoming more and more trivial. A few hours after leaving Washington, we set up a campsite before going on to the Festival. Things got even better. Laura's remarks about the huckleberries were not infuriating and romanticizing, but simply an invitation to pick some huckleberries. Nor did I spew pure knowitallness, but rather some sweet mix of idealism, realism, genius, and possibility.

In the place of these problems, we instead had our old selves back, where Laura would make puns in every sentence and I discover gems of new ideas or thoughts from every direction and answer every question not simply with words but with life.

After setting up the tents, the four of us were back in the car and finally headed to the site of the festival.

``Laura, your eyes,'' I said, a little startled.

``What, Chris?''

``You're looking at me.''

``I guess I am.'' Laura had a way sometimes - most of the time - of looking at me with her head cocked to the side. As if to insure she wasn't leading me on. ``Something is going right, Chris.'' It was. We were talking again. ``Chris,'' she whispered, ``I have something to give you...shall I ask or just give it?''

``Give it to me, Laura.'' And after a flick of her eyes she leaned over from her side of the back seat to mine, and we shared a short kiss that was also an invitation for more later.

We were talking again, like twenty months before, the communication and the physical intimacy that had previously been part of my falling in love with her. It was not like that now, though. Neither of us were falling in love - or if we were, it was with the world or ourselves, not each other, though in some ways we allowed each other to embody that entire world we were rediscovering.

And we told our stories, of life and love; adventures of how we had met our true loves - for her, Carl; for me, Gloria - and how we ended up leaving them. We listened to the music; sang, ate the bread I had made. Then, late, returned to the camping area and to our tent, stayed up as the trains rushed by from Alaska, and made love as the first birds began to chirp in anticipation of dawn.

Soon, daylight and festival workshops had us running back and forth, so pleasantly independent, neither of us bound by what ordinarily might be expected of such renaissance. And here and again finding each other for a moment of one sort or another; a word, spoken or glimpsed; a picture (``click'') just to remember; a gesture. And then a conversation.

How I was finally freed of Gloria, and her unfair treatment of me. If only, I said, if only she could have at least shared her feelings with me, rather than keeping them so caged up, we both could have grown together from the start, rather than ever further apart, and could have learned rather than reacted.

``Mhm,'' said Laura, and began a thought that emerged several hours later. But in the meantime, more puns and music, more stories; reminding me of childhood hours spent at a lake where my family would often go for a barbeque, me playing so innocently, no thought in my mind questioning whether what I was doing was enough or legitimate.

Then, hours later, going on dinner time, talking again with Laura, and she continued the thought she had started earlier. ``Chris, you talk about how Gloria didn't share how she was feeling; how she kept so much in that seemed to conflict with you. Well, it's kind of strange, but I think I am feeling that same thing happening to me now.''

And with that comment, my whole dream and reality shook; trembling now, seeing that she was right, that my problems with Gloria could all be traced back to me - the silence, the confusion, the pain, the split. And then, that what was done could never be undone. That shock was the beginning of something; a shift, perhaps; or a rebirth, or the discovery of my first shadow. The discovery that what I considered one of my most basic values (insistence on truth) had poisoned itself by becoming an end and not a means.

But though my stomach had the hollow, butterfly feeling I sometimes have in dreams, or that I have on waterslides when I am suddendly in midair for a moment, still the moment of communication with Laura remained - and improved even more, with her sharing that observation about herself. It is always so hard to make real conclusions about things like this, but I think that genuine, loving, aware, amazing comment from Laura - being herself fully, emotionally and analytically, not judging me but helping me see where to grow, was the single most important moment in my growth. Ever. I went back and forth on that; was it simply convenient, and I was ready for it anyway? I think partly, I was ready for it. And part of me would like to give myself the power to discover that in myself. But I don't think I would be right. I think ``I'' am much less independent than that; that this moment might have come much earlier or much later, if only the right situation had come up where someone could reach out directly from their heart to mine.

The rest of my time with Laura - just over two weeks - had its highs and lows. Sometimes we engaged with each other so openly, as only we could; and sometimes we were just in each other's way, especially me in her way. I visited other friends I knew who lived nearby on weekends, and spent a few nights in the youth hostel. But after two weeks, we knew I couldn't be around much longer.

For our last adventure together, we picked a day to hike up to the Olympic Hot Springs, where we had also gone on my last trip almost two years before. All packed up, we left early in the morning, stopping at the same fruit market Laura always stops at as she goes to this hiking spot - her favorite. Hike, hike, hike...it's not far, but we have backpacks on. We set up the tent, eat a small, late lunch, and are off to the hot springs, planning to spend a few hours of the afternoon before returning to start a yummy dinner.

``I had a dinner with the neighbor the other night,'' Laura says, as we arrive at the top spring.

``The one who has a crush on you and your mom both?''

``One of those, yeah...'' We share a chuckle. ``The tall handsome one with dark hair.''

``Oh, that one,'' Another chuckle.

``He wanted me to write him a hot, steamy letter. I said maybe. I think this is the place.''

``Sure is.'' Something about her tone really pisses me off though. It's got something to do with what I call her romanticization of things. Maybe it makes me feel less valued than the things she romanticizes - which is, everything: her state, her kitchen, Carl, the present, the past ...probably me when I'm not around. I think that must be it; I want her to concentrate on the present - on me - not on the rest of her life.

And she writes her letter, which completely misleads the reader into an inaccurate picture of this scene; misses the frustration Laura and I are feeling, misses that the spring isn't as warm as it ought to be, misses that we didn't eat enough or even bring enough to eat. And when she shows it to me, she wants to know what I think. And I tell her - I think it's romanticizing. I widen the gap yet further with every word. But I have the good sense to excuse myself apologetically and return to the tent, giving her some time to herself to forgive me, and me some time to myself, not sure what the hell I am thinking.

Dinner and the evening I can't remember; the next day we're up early, neither of us sure whether we want to have sex or not, doing it, a little disturbed afterwards at how mechanical it had been. Then hiking up the mountain to a lake, and taking a dip in the frigid water. But neither hiking nor the water, nor the short jog I took up to the peak of the nearby mountain brought us closer together.

``What's going on, Laura? We're all fucked up.''

``Yeah, I agree with you about that.''

``Pretty strange sex,'' I said.

``It was. I didn't feel like initiating it; though I didn't mind. Oh, I don't know if that has anything to do with it. The first time I have wondered `where is Chris?' and I guess `where is Laura?' ''

``When I woke up this morning, Laura, I was having a bad dream, that I was having sex with you and you didn't want me there; wanted Carl there I think. But you definitely didn't want me there. And then I felt like before I knew it, it was happening. Was it rape in the dream? I don't know. It's scary.''

``Well, you can count on me to tell you if you are doing something I don't want. OK?''

``OK,'' I agreed. But the tension built up again; god, neither of us knew what it was. We were each wishing we were someone else. Our eyes fought.

``We should go.'' Laura said.

``Maybe you should go first; I'll follow in a little while, give us a chance to think again.''

She agreed, and left.

``Look, Chris,'' Laura gave me one last chance once I'd caught up to her. ``This amazing view - take one last look before leaving!''

Trees. What the hell.

``Well!?'' she insisted.

``Seems pretty nice and normal to me; don't see why you can't be this happy every day. This is the same view as out of any window at home.''

There I was again. I guess, at least this time I was a little more aware of how I was silencing her. We start walking back to the car, unable to make any eye contact even.

``Chris,'' she says, hurt and angry but covering it up a little, ``I can see what it is now. You claim to be the most accepting person in the world; claim it's the most important thing. But I think you're the least accepting! You might be allowing, but you are definitely not accepting!''

Damn her, damn me, damn whatever I'd figured out before, damn my habits, and damn the future. What the hell do you do when you are so convinced that your ways help other people but the evidence mounts that they do not? All I could do was walk to the bottom of the hill sharing the blaring silence with Laura, who was a genius who should go to hell and heaven. Meanwhile, the butterfly in my stomach doubled in size, grew a tail, and lay eggs in preparation for a complete takeover.