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Chapter 3 - Party on the RooftopOur new house was completed a month after I returned from Moscow, thanks to everyone lending a helping hand. Indeed, everyone helped. Even Fred had come down from Washington on weekends to help with finishing the house. He enjoyed working with Ross and Sylvia, and I with Heather. Finishing the inside of the house became a community project and almost a sexual affair. We were in love with each other, respected each other, joked about each other when we were covered head to toe in drywall dust, or when we were trying to get some paint out of Heather's hair after its accidental encounter with a paint brush. The congenial atmosphere continued for some time after the house was completed. Sylvia and I often had Ross and Heather for dinner. We also spent many a night together when the weather made it difficult for Ross and Heather to make their way back to their side of our bay that we shared. Only a crude trail had so far connected our two houses. Sometimes, especially on nights of stormy weather when going home became impossible for Ross and Heather, Heather and I shared the bed in our spare bedroom upon Sylvia's suggestion. The daring arrangement met with Ross' delight, who enjoyed being with Sylvia, in turn. Even Fred spent some nights with Sylvia when he came for a visit from Washington. Soon, all of this ended for reasons that none of us could figure out, or cared to discuss. It simply ended. It ended gradually at first until it finally came to a stop in the following year with the falling of the autumn leaves. But why did it come to a stop after all the bright times we had shared? Had we become less human, less spiritual, less in love with each other, less in love with ourselves? Or was there no longer a need for sharing our love? The latter didn't appear to be the case, since with the falling off in our social sharing subtle tensions emerged. They emerged in the background at first, causing an empty kind of feeling. I realized, of course, that an extremely challenging principle had been involved in our all-embracing outflow of loving one-another. Had the principle become lost? Did we no longer recognize its value? Did we no longer care to rise to its challenge? Maybe the reason for this falling off was merely the lack of momentum that creeps into any process when the drive for moving ahead becomes swallowed up by apathy. Maybe the reason was that Steve and Ushi were no longer with us who always caused us to reach higher than we dared and had had urged us to constantly raise the bar up, to step away from mediocrity and tired conventions, and to challenge ourselves with the infinite - that is to go for the gold? Maybe that's what was missing. Maybe that's what was missing from our self-love. Except, how does one get this back, especially when no one cares to talk about it or even wants to admit that a problem exists? With these thoughts the idea emerged, that maybe the platform on which our precious unity had been built, had not been set up high enough for it to remain secure. The opposite thought also emerged, that maybe our platform had been set up too high, so that we could no longer reach it to build upon. What does one do then in such cases when one's self-love trails in the dust, instead of being the animator for an expanding life? It seemed to me more and more in those days that we had met another impasse, perhaps not a fundamental barrier, but another SandCastle-type impasse. Only this time, with Steve and Ushi being out of reach, we were challenged to resolve the unfolding impasse by ourselves without anyone standing at our side to help us to get us out of the rut. We were required to be the pioneers that we expected the whole world to be in the political sphere. I told myself that getting out of this rut would have been so easy if Steve had remained to be just a phone call away. That door was closed now. We were left on our own. But why should this be frightening? || - page index - || - chapter index - || - Exit - ||
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