Our house is a very, very, very fine house. -Crosby, Stills and Nash & Young
In 1978 I arrived in Seattle on a Greyhound bus with a suitcase and a letter of admission to the University of Washington. It was my second-ever trip west from Connecticut, made in a great paroxysm of energy that was equal parts desire and flight. I have no idea why I went. I only knew I had to go.
Shortly after arriving I learned of a coop house in the University District, with a room for rent. I was promptly interviewed by the six tenants, at the dining room table. Suddenly, they stood up and left, apparently to consider my candidacy. They never came back, which I could only interpret as a bad sign. But then, 10 minutes later, a tall, Gandalf-like figure emerged from his subterranean hiding place, walked quickly past, and muttered: “You’re in.”
And so began a joyous, maddening, and altogether amazing stay at Hospitality House. The house was an egalitarian experiment, a study hall, a debating society, a crucible of intellectualism, a culinary exploration, a sanitary mess, an argument, a laugh, a tear, a joke, and perhaps most of all, a party.
As an exercise in communal living, it was accompanied by chore lists, shared shopping tasks, dinner assignments, and shifts in the garden, shoveling manure. As with all such experiments, we rode high on our successes, stumbled on our failures, hated each other, loved each other, accused each other of great negligence, and generally had an amazing time. You know: The full catastrophe.
Everything in those years now seems pregnant with importance. I was living in Hospitality House when, at 19, I met the love of my life. We are still married, 35 years later. (I was not alone in this. Like me, Cathy met John while in that house. Like us, they have a daughter. Like us, they are still together. ) I also met Dennis, the most enduring friend of my life. Each time the two of us have arranged a rendezvous over the last 35 years, from Vermont to Big Sur, we never fail to touch on the venerable Hospitality House. We reflect on its joys, its humorous moments, its maddening squabbles. What can it mean when something lodges in memory like that, for all those decades? Of course, it can only mean one thing: we loved the place.
The house, in its brief existence, created its own weather system of politics, culture and philosophy. We cared deeply about the environment. We loathed what had become of our government. We clung to high ideals. We felt we could do something about the whole mess.
At the same time, we were burdened by the conventional necessities of work, and school, and figuring out how to pay our onerous monthly rent of $79. We were uniformly tormented by personal relationships. We drank, and smoked, way too much. We had no idea what we were ultimately going to do with our lives. But we were sure it was going to be good.
I was, at 19, the youngster of the house, with all the cockiness that comes from that station in life. I’m quite sure I contributed less to the general well being of the household than anyone else. I was probably more annoying than anyone else. And I was surely the least capable in the kitchen. But, for whatever reason, I was tolerated and perhaps even embraced. (And for that, I thank you all.) I was nothing if not impressionable. It didn’t take long to figure out that I had picked a good group of people to be impressed by.
Unfortunately, the house was also visited by unspeakable tragedy, with household members losing two close friends (or lovers, I was never sure which), in the space of a year. We did what we could for each other, but the incidents cast a pall over the house from which it never quite recovered.
And now, incredibly, two of our own have been lost in the last year: Casey and Dan. How is this possible? I remember Casey as being enchanting, prone to bursts of laughter, but also vexed and occasionally dark, seemingly carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Then there was Dan, with his cheese blintzes, remarkable culinary skills and musical talents. Dan was the music teacher I never had, fostering a love of early folk and blues. Dan was also the angry Marxist, proclaiming his philosophy with relentless passion, and no small amount of smugness.
And yet, all this tragedy has served its purpose, as it always must. In mid-October, momentum began to build, inexorably, toward a grand reunion, in memory of Casey. E-mails flew in a great storm of excitement, from California, to Oregon, to Alaska, to Texas, and of course, to Ravenna. Like a force of nature, the whole project gained inertia: flights were made, floor space was located, airport transportation arranged for. All the alumni of that great house converged, from throughout the west, to remember what was.
I pass by this house now and see it has received the fitting care we could never give it, and that it ultimately deserved. It’s resplendent with new paint, fixtures, and landscaping–true Seattle living. Last time I visited, there were children’s toys scattered across the front yard. A family lives there.
In this, things are not so different. A family lived there in 1979, too.
