I have a job. And a boss. And I'm not allowed to wear sandals.

I'm struggling with the differences between my life on the commune and the life I'm building for myself here. I wanted to carry it all with me: the ideals, the sense of possibilities, my comfort with my body and its functions. I just recently started peeing outside again, after feeling worried that the neighbors would drive by. I still haven't felt all right about taking off my shirt on hot days while I'm working around the yard.

This whole "job" thing is also a challenge for me. I'm re-training myself to remember to bring everything I need for the day, including clothes for various weather conditions. At Twin Oaks, I ran back to my room several times a day to get warmer clothes or nap or grab whatever I needed for my next activity. I only work 7 miles away from home, but that's still too far to pop in for a sweatshirt or a snack. Also, I'm working with people I don't know and who don't know me, and that's uncomfortable. I guess anyone who's starting a new job will have that experience, but after working for nearly 4 years with people I knew on all kinds of intimate levels, it's quite a shift. They told me on Friday that I'm not allowed to wear sandals on the job (it's a freaking summer camp!), and I was taken aback by how smoothly and confidently they told me what I have to do. No conversation, no explanation of why... just, "this is the way it is." You aren't on the commune anymore, Dorothy. I'm only working two days a week now, and I'm a little anxious about what it'll be like to be under someone else's command for 50 hrs a week once I start full time in May.

I'm struggling with how much I'm driving, the kinds of food I'm eating, the ways I'm spending money, and how I'm passing the time. I've been watching more movies than ever, because Free's kids love them (I've now seen Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter at least 5 times each). I'm eating more sugar than I have in a long time, sleeping less than I need to (when the kids can't sleep, we can't sleep), and not spending much time by myself. Welcome to Instant Motherhood! Fall in love, get three kids as part of the package.

and at the same time, I'm in a play again, and loving it. I love going to rehearsals and exploring emotions and motivations in conjunction with other talented actors. The play is All My Sons, but Arthur Miller, and it's a brilliant look at human responsibility and interdependence, and the ways that mainstream culture undermines personal repsonsibility. At least, that's the way that I read it, and I'm honored to be presenting a show that delivers that kind of message. This is my way of serving the world: developing awareness. And theater is one of the primary ways for doing that.

One thing I'm noticing about being away from Twin Oaks is that I'm excercising my "proactive" muscles again. For the most part (when I'm not at work), I get to decide what I do in every moment, instead of following my labor sheet. Of course, my schedule is going to quickly fill up and soon I'll be working a full time job and rehearsals in the evening and then I'll have school... but for now, my days are my own and I find myself responding to my own initiatives, making things happen around here without going through extensive process or thinking it's someone else's responsibility. I'm doing a lot of home repair jobs, fixing up the double wide which was built to fall apart, finding ways to make it more stable and effective as a home.

At the same time, I miss the structure of Twin Oaks, where everything I did had meaning in the larger world because it was supporting the community, an alternative model for healthy living. Everything I did was a part of that larger organism which was contributing to the world in a way that I loved and was proud of. Here, me fixing the closet shelves doesn't have any larger meaning, except my happiness and comfort, which tangentially affects the people I interact with, which tangentially affects the larger world... it's all much less tangible, and so my responsibility is less tangible. I notice myself sliding on my ideals and integrity because my choices don't seem to make as much of a difference. I'm getting lazy and a bit apathetic, and that frightens me. I've only been away from the commune for 3 months and I'm already feeling passive? Yikes!

Plans have changed. Instead of traveling on wild adventures around the country, I'm having wild adventures right here in central Virginia. Instead of journeying to distant lands, I spent yesterday at the first farmer's market of the season in Charlottesville, selling mushrooms grown by my... ahem... fiance' on "our" farm.

I've been growing and changing in so many ways over the past 2 months. I think I haven't been writing because it's been so overwhelming, and I've just barely been staying on top of my own changes, trying to understand them as it all flies by, grasping onto new understandings and ideas before they've dissolved into NEW understandings and ideas! I can't explain it all to myself in my brain, much less put it into words. Now, though, things feel like they're starting to settle into place. Roots are being established, getting used to the different nutrients of this new soil.

I left for the meditation retreat two months ago, and stayed for 8 days of the 10 day course. I could elaborate on what didn't work for me, but mostly it just wasn't a good fit for where I was emotionally at that point. I wanted to be out in the world, exploring and creating, and I got bored with sitting and existing in the moment. The moment was fine, but then I wanted to DO something with the moment! I wanted to write, or dance, or talk with people, or build something. I realized I'm not all that interested in enlightement right now -- I want to live on the Earth and experience the cycles of joy and pain! So, a friend and I left together and hitchiked through rural Maryland to DC, where we caught a bus down to Charlottesville. She retured to Twin Oaks, and I returned to Free.

I also realized on my meditation course that I didn't actually want to travel alone for the next several months. I wanted to start building my life in partnership with this man I'm in love with. Before I left on my travels, we both acknowledged our desire and intention to be partners for life. At some point, he asked me if I thought we'd ever get married. "Sure," I said, and then he asked, "Is that a proposal?" "Sure!" I said, and it was done. We got rings from an antique store and announced it to our parents. Originally, the plan was that we'd start building our life together when I returned. In those 8 days of meditation, that quickly seemed ludicrous! Traveling around the country was an old dream, and not as powerful for me now as it was 4 years ago. What I want now is to start a garden and build a home and partnership so that I have a solid base when school starts in the fall (yes, I got in! With full funding!).

It's an engaging and ever-evolving process, this "home creation" thing. He's been here for nearly a year already, and so I'm moving into what's already been established, finding the balance of fitting myself in to what exists and changing things to meet my needs. This extends into relationships with his three kids, as I become more a part of their lives and vice versa. They're delighted to call me their "stepmom" and they make fun of Free and I when we're too mushy. We have friendships already that have been established over the past 2 years, and now we're exploring what it's like to live together, and how discipline and boundary-setting fits into or changes our identities with each other. I got a book from the library about being a step-parent, and basically what it says is "it's hard!"

Slowly, slowly, I'm settling in. l seeded a garden area with red clover last month, and the sprouts are now well-established and starting to grow. Just today I finished building a cold frame for early plants, and I have some lovely potted herbs in there now, gotten through barter at the farmer's market. I love this life of growing and sharing and bartering and sharing... even better than the commune where it was institutionalized. Here it's organic, direct from desire to action, without bureaucracy and systematic structure. In the last hour of the market, we traded nearly 5 pounds of mushrooms with other vendors, walking away with herbs, flowers, scones, cheese, and a pound of organic beef. Who says we're poor? I just had a snack of fresh organic basil on slices of colby cheese, and it was incredibly luxurious, sitting in the double wide trailer that is now my home. I often lament this place, the poor soil, the beer can and candy wrap littered property, the poorly insulated, made-to-fall-apart building... the weight of my "white trash" stereotypes often turns down the edges of my mouth in a cynical sneer when I think about this place. The more I live here though, it becomes more "home" than "double wide", more "life" than "labels". I'm finding a new way of living, again.