The Cambridge Chronicles

I have just had a fantasy from which an interesting insight has come. It was with Beth, a friend of Simone's. She has been having physical and emotional difficulties lately. Speaking to Simone the other day, on the phone, she began to shout and scream that Simone should get out of her relationship with me, that I am nothing but a male chauvinist pig. A few moments ago I had a fantasy of the two of us being at a restaurant. A neutral situation. Simone and Phil were also there. Suddenly Beth takes a knife and attacks me. I defend against it. Phil then comes to help her. I defend myself further. It was at this moment I realized something. I have this sort of fantasy often with different people. It is often after I have had some sort of bad experience with them, or have heard indirectly that they have a negative opinion of me. The fantasy starts with myself and the other person in some sort of neutral situation. We begin to communicate or do something. The other person, in the fantasy, becomes extremely hostile, most often physically attacking me. My reaction, as one would expect, is to defend myself. It is always very clear that I am justified in doing so. It seems as though I use such a fantasy to make the relationship between me and the other person more black and white. They attack me in some way, proving that they are the evil or bad one in the situation. I am better since my only reaction is to defend myself. I feel a sort of moral indignation come over me when one of these happens. Everyone can see that the other person is crazy and there is nothing to what they have said about me. Their criticisms are only the rantings of a crazy lunatic, not to be taken seriously. It seems to be a way of deflecting criticism. Its a way of making anything they have said about me seem wrong. A few minutes later I have one in the same vein about Michael.

It took a phone call from a foreign land to wake me up this morning. It was Sten calling from Germany. He has been leading the Dieter Duhm group. He wants to know when the next edition of AA is coming out. He wants to publish something about what he is doing. He asks about the situation here. It seems the group, or Sten, is thinking about moving to the US. He mentions they, or him, are anxious about war and the problems with having enough oil. He has been leading SD's and trance, and also taking people back to former lives. He may return about the end of July.

Some hard criticism from Edwin yesterday. It started out with his bringing up something from last November. It seems he wanted me to participate in this group that was doing something similar to SD. It was a form of psychodrama. It was marginally successful. The leader was having problems with his marriage. Edwin would invite me every week. Very few people attended. It eventually failed. He says, I wanted you to help me. You failed, he says. Edwin thinks of me as a very talented person, he is envious of my ability to do things, but sees, in me, some blocks and difficulties that prevent me from making progress towards creating a FH like environment. The first part, the bringing up of this dead past, I can laugh at. He has had plenty of opportunity to participate in what we try to do here. Mostly he decides no to. Right now he is on his way to Essex to visit the Rajneesh group. He has been going there every weekend. He even has a pair of orange pants. He has written a will and named Rajneesh as a benefactor. But he meant to leave yesterday afternoon. He is still here. He wants me to participate in something he has swallowed and resents it when I don't. His resistance may be partly because I pointed out how he ignores many opportunities to do things with us. He says Poona may be closing down. Rajneesh is supposedly in New Jersey, and may be coming to visit the Essex Center. He will go there for a week to help get the place ready. He does not like the way women seem to be in charge of things there. I tell him its probably best since women do not have so much experience being authoritarian. This will help keep things from getting tense. He thinks this place is more relaxed than the other centers. It could be because of new-ness. But I have gotten off the track. His criticism of me is something like what Simone said recently. She said, you want to be like Otto, but you can't. You don't work on yourself like he does. You always try to push aside what other people notice about you. She said this about a week ago. But that on top of Edwin's view, made me depressed most of yesterday.

I have just spoken to my mother. The pictures have not been found. She will go go the shipping office tomorrow to ask again about them. I try to make her feel guilty so she will be sure to do it. She feels bad about it anyway. They are pictures that I have no copies of. A letter from Cheyenne seems to have some mention of me. She does not remember exactly what. Perhaps Cheyenne saying that she spoke to me around her birthday. It seems as though I am on her mind.

Something I noticed about Simone's eloquent little speech of several days ago. I was thinking of how a slave might say, my problem is that I am not a good slave. The solution to my problems is to be a perfect slave. Simone always seems to be criticizing herself for the same sort of situation. She is a slave to her ideas about finding a perfect man, becoming perfectly committed, having a perfect marriage, having a perfect couple relationship. But never questioning these things. That like slavery, these things might also be wrong. They just may be rotten things for a person to try and do. But its a hard thing for a person to see when they are completely wrapped up in their slavery. I have seen this in myself with all my unrealistic expectations of others, but not the same expectations of myself. Its in my impatience with Simone and Linda over their jealousy difficulties. Someone is always catching me being intellectual or ideological. I am trying to weed those things out. How to separate the weeds from the grass?

Simone tells me Gene Hall was inspired by the Social Art Works, and the visits he made to our house, and wrote some music about it. Last night I went to hear him play at the Cambridge Food Coop Coffee House. A small crowd. Daniel and I went to see a mindless movie, Cannonball Run, in Boston. It was strange to be on the subway/bus. An invasion of punkrockers. Everyone was so still and quiet. They all looked straight ahead. An alienating feeling. I haven't been out on a social night like that in a long time. I felt completely disconnected from everyone and wanted to run home to the womb. Jeff was also there. He and Gene came home with us for a visit.