Perfect Bodies Summer 1999

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I loved community. I first lived in a community house during the summer of 1991, volunteering as a day camp counselor in north Philadelphia. I went back for more the next summer. Then I started a community house with other students from my college. Five of us lived together for a year in south Minneapolis. After graduation I moved to Washington, D.C. to begin a graduate school program. For three and a half years I lived at Esther House, a community house with a focus on inner-city outreach, my longest and deepest experience in community living. I left there when I got married, when I moved into my husband's community house in Buffalo, New York: one other married couple and four single people sharing apartments in a large house. After a month, we moved out.

Now, a year after getting married, I live with my husband in an apartment. We don't know our neighbors, we don't share rent with anyone, and we do our own dishes. Marriage is a form of community, but it brought me loneliness as well as connection. The transition from one community to another was anything but smooth, and we opted to move out and enjoy our new marriage in relative peace. I think it was a good choice, but it had costs. The conversation and connection with one person simply can't match the liveliness of five housemates, neighborhood children, and a dog. In marriage I've been blessed with depth of intimacy, which I wanted, but I lost the breadth of relationships that I had in my community house and in my neighborhood.

Community was wonderful. One time the valve on Carolyn's pressure cooker broke, and we fixed it by taping a bit of rubber over the hole. Several minutes later the kitchen was raining black beans. To this day, the white ceiling has a purplish haze ...

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