Composing a Life

been approached for her notes and drafts on the prewar teaching of dance in Europe, for most of the records there were destroyed.
    These are not mere byways of nostalgia, for in each case there are new beginnings and potentials for creativity. The relationships and commitments of these women’s lives are not disposable; instead, each is treasured for possible recycling. I started this project with a sharp awareness of discontinuities. In an early draft, I wrote bitterly, “Do not pass GO. Do not collect two hundred dollars,” referring to the Monopoly cards dealt during the draining interruptions of women’s lives. But because the project extended over several years, I had a chance to see interruptions reshaped into transitions as thread after thread from the past was picked up and woven in. As a result, I look at discontinuity differently. The lesson each of us has drawn from multiple fresh starts is that there is always something in the past to work with. Today, Alice has left her company and its future is uncertain. She is still hesitating between different possibilities in the United States and Japan as a researcher or as an executive. By this time, like each of the rest of us, she has enough experience of new beginnings to be skilled in recycling what she has learned in new contexts, and she has the confidence to move forward slowly, doing enough consulting to maintain her flexibility. In moments of doubt, I tell myself I have survived one revolution that wasted the work of years. One revolution and a coup.
    Our lives are full of surprises, for none of us has followed a specific ambition toward a specific goal. Instead, we have learned from interruptions and improvised from the materials that came to hand, reshaping and reinterpreting. As a result, all of us have lived with high levels of ambiguity. Johnnetta was once the most radical of the group, but today she builds within existing institutions; Ellen, with her intense concern for the needs of homeless families, works through corporate structures. Absolute solutions give way to compromises, but the compromises are organic hybrids able to flourish in a complex ecosystem that spreads more widely and endures longer than we would once have imagined. None of us follows a single vision; instead, our very visions are products of growth and adaptation, not fixed but emergent.
    We all work too hard, burning too many candles, driven by a sense of how much needs to be done. Johnnetta is hounded by invitations, for the image she can offer is rare and badly needed. She worries that quality will be compromised under pressure, but this is part of a life whose theme is response rather than purpose, response that makes us more broadly attentive, rather than purpose that might narrow our view.
    None of us is a superwoman. As we get older we increasingly must worry about conserving energy, avoiding fatigue and jet lag and stress, caring for our bodies and our minds instead of spending them carelessly, so there will be more to give. This is not a matter of having it all, for the hours of the day and the vitality of our bodies are indeed limited. It is a matter of having more, for each of us has discovered, in spite of double-shift labor and competing demands, that we are nurtured by our work and that we can combine different kinds of tasks so they feed each other—mostly—instead of competing.
    Implicit in everything we do is a longing for synergy, a hope that when there are competing demands on our time or strength we can find non-zero-sum solutions—not this replacing that, but this enhancing that. For once, the images of patchwork and weaving seem to me inadequate. Instead, I visualize one of those oriental puzzles, with its seemingly arbitrary pieces spread across the tabletop, which may somehow be fitted together to form a perfect sphere. Joan and Erik live now in a house they share with two younger colleagues, where public and private, home and work, effort and play are coiled and fitted together. I constantly try to combine trips, to piggyback one task on another; whenever an invitation comes that will take me to a distant city, I schedule other visits or meetings around it, and travel home exhausted. It’s not surprising that I tried at Amherst to persuade departments that copiers or buses or even academic appointments could be shared, for I have spent much of my life stretching resources to respond to multiple needs. At the worst times, when you encounter