I spent countless hours trying to figure out people like lan, who did absolutely nothing, or Cecilia, who crossed into the straight life with nary a backward glance. Ultimately I gave up, becoming wary and distant from the parade through our home. Attachment to these people, however appealing, only meant hurt when they vanished. And, invariably, they did.
Friendless and unspeakably lonely, I despaired of finding people who shared my world view. My peers were a bunch of smart, rich kids following the party line, wearing Levi’s with the waist size blacked out, meeting their future spouses at B’nai B’rith youth group meetings, readying their applications to the University of Michigan. Their predictable behavior patterns enraged me. I had no desire to be like them. I wanted them to be like me.
When I was seventeen, my family decided to move to Los Angeles, where my father could find lucrative employment in the burgeoning defense industry. I was thrilled to leave, thinking of California ’s then-affordable state colleges and of all the hip, like-thinking people I’d befriend or date. Only my mother cried when we left Caroline behind.
My father found a job at a big defense company doing government contract work. He loathed it and everything it represented, but we had medical insurance, were able to replace the rusted-out station wagon and could even afford to go see Tom Petty at the Universal Amphitheater. A local kid sold us something we’d never heard of, ‘skunk,’ pot so powerful it left my sister giggling helplessly in the bathtub.
The move gave us an enormous culture shock. People spoke unrecognizable valley-girl English. Strip malls lined every non-residential street, each anchored by a nail salon. People were enthralled by their fingernails and their weight. The weather was the same every day: hot, dry and unbearably bright. Our first Christmas in LA. utterly unnerved me. I had taken a terrible job with an insurance company while waiting to establish residency for college. The city had overdecorated, as if compensating for the eighty-five degree heat. I remember emerging from the office building at noon. Christmas Eve, hitting that blast of dry Santa Ana heat and wanting to kill myself.
My depression deepened into a constant that varied only in intensity. I remember finishing Simone de Beauvoir’s The Mandarins during my sophomore year. It was the final day before the month-long holiday break, and the campus was deserted, smelling (finally) of winter and dry leaves. An empty month lay ahead. Even the book, with its fascinating characters who led full, exciting lives, was finished. I dropped it reluctantly in the library return slot and thought again about suicide.
At twenty-two I had a nervous breakdown. I was doing well in school, but it wasn’t enough to pull me up from the emptiness of my personal life. I ceased functioning at home, crying constantly and sleeping as much as possible. I became obsessed with my weight and the most efficient way to commit suicide.
Fortunately, I was still living with my parents. My sister had moved in with a boyfriend. My brother, who was fourteen when we arrived, had made the best adjustment, getting his GED, a good job and a nice car in short order. He was busy playing in bands and going out to Hollywood clubs with his many friends. So my parents, who weren’t meeting scads of people themselves, had plenty of time to babysit me. For the next two years, I lived in a bizarre netherworld, finishing my B. A. and falling apart. For a while I was incapable of going to the supermarket alone. I’d stand there, bewildered: What did we need? Why was I there? If I stayed in my bedroom with the stereo on for more than a half hour, my mother pounded on the door until I came out. She walked dozens of miles with me around our subdivision as I ranted about ending my life.
I visited a therapist in a tony office on Ventura Boulevard. The color of her suit matched her shoes and fingernails. She told me I was an intellectual snob and needed to go Jewish folk dancing, where I would meet nice boys. ‘Call me,’ she offered while ushering me out, ‘if you feel suicidal over the weekend.’
‘You,’ I thought, ‘are the last person I’d call.’
Eventually the worst of it lifted. I graduated with honors. My brother moved out to pursue his nocturnal music career. I remained in our large house. I paid my parents a little rent and continued to help around the house.
At twenty-five I met my husband through a personals ad I placed in an alternative newspaper. I was meeting no men, the ad was free, I had nothing to lose. I received hundreds of responses, finally hitting on the line ‘looks and money not important’ to winnow out callers boasting of ‘industry’ jobs, yachts and horse ranches. John’s voice message only said: ‘Call me and we’ll savage the right.’
We met for coffee and nursed cappuccinos for three hours. We met at Venice Beach and strolled the boardwalk, poking into bookstores and head shops. I told my mother, ‘We get along.’
‘You’re going to marry him,’ she said.
It would be disingenuous to close with counterculture girl met counterculture boy, had counterculture wedding (the groom wore shoulder-length hair and a Jerry Garcia tie; the bride didn’t have a manicure) and lived happily ever after. We each continue to act in two worlds. John is an environmental engineer with an inter-national company that drug tests its employees. His gorgeous long hair rests in an envelope in his desk drawer.
John has a rare chromosomal aberration called Becker Muscular Dystrophy. It is a slow wasting of the leg and hip muscles, sometimes compounded by pulmonary and cardiac complications. Recent medical research has prolonged the lives of those afflicted, but we live with the knowledge that we may not grow old together.
He was diagnosed at sixteen and promptly decided to live as he wished and fight like hell. His attitude gives mine ballast. Unlike me, John had many friends when we met, some close. I had long before internalized the idea that the only relationships worth pursuing were of the Caroline and Michael variety. I learned from John that an acquaintance based on a few shared interests can be rewarding, and that such relationships don’t represent the surrender of core values. Instead, they are companionship, a shared glass of wine or a hit, a pleasant evening, a party to attend. I learned not to expect an intense communion at every encounter.
In fact, I stopped looking for it. I now have a few friends. None are remotely like the relationships I witnessed growing up. I am still lonely, though less so, and prone to bouts of depression. I suspect I always shall be. But knowing my happy marriage may not last forces me to attend to the present.
I am now thirty-one years old and hold to my early pursuit of a foot in each world. To an extent, I feel alienated by each; I’d no sooner vote for Elizabeth Dole than I’d live without running water. This lands me in a gray place, going into the straight world for my paycheck, then veering toward the counterculture for a reaffirma-tion of my values.
My parents, now in their late fifties, continue their coun-tercultural ways, fond as ever of lava lamps and always the oldest attendees at rock concerts. After an earthquake damaged their home, they moved to the Southwest, to a blindingly bright white house that deflects the desert sun. Surrounding them are young Mormon couples who make their anti-Semitism plain. Membership in the homeowners’ association is mandatory.