Teaching Anthropology: SACC Notes Vol.9, No. 1 Fall 2002 Page 31

As the Other Shoe Drops: Unraveling ARelationship and A Story

Leanna Wolfe[Editor's note: This is Leanna Wolfe's third article for SACC Notes on her continuing

research as a participant-observer ofpofyamory in contemporary America. The othersappeared in VoL5, No. 2,1998 and VoL7. No.2, 2000-2001.]

In the summer of 2001 I decided itwas truly time to wind down my re-search and write my book. I acceptedno teaching assignments and holed upin the small writing office aboard ourMarina del Rey houseboat and at-tempted to write. I churned outabout half a chapter and began todistract myself. I couldn 't concen-trate. I kept thinking about howcreative and reflective I'd feltwhen I'd been in East Africa threeyears before. Then, words wouldjust tumble into my journal andeverything around me was fasci-nating. I sensed I needed to go sit in aremote third world village and think.

My book slipped into the depths ofmy computer as I began the ritual ofsurfing the web for airfares and oppor-tunities. By the second week of Au-gust I found myself sitting amongst atribe of Enga people in the Highlandsof Papua New Guinea. I filled my note-books with stories of polygynous mar-riages gone awry, witnessed pigs beingoffered in exchange for the right tomarry a bride and took hundreds ofamazing pictures. Some of the NewGuinea I visited was decades moreprimitive than the East Africa I had got-ten to know three years before. Itrekked into a traditional Huli villagewhere men's fears of pollution bywomen's menstrual blood were sostrong that no man would dare leave thecompelling web of village life.

Meanwhile, my co-wife, Angela, wasoff on assignment in New York City andmy partner, Don, was home alone. Foronce he had time to think over thosebig questions, like "What am I doingwith my life?" He thought about howall the service he does for others andhow so few people these days find valuein giving. So many Americans justthink about "What's in it for me?" Theirconsiderations center upon getting more

money and getting more things. Andhe does have many people that heserves. Of course there are his art stu-dents, his daughter Xiomara, me, An-gela, his ex-wives, his mother and therest of his extended family. At times it

feels like he does so much to meet theneeds of others, especially the womenin his life, and gets so little in return.

He closed his eyes a moment and be-gan to fantasize about the vacation heand Angela would take to the smallColorado town in which she grew up.They'd take an overnight train, rent acar and drive all over those beautifulmountains. In the five years they'dknown each other, they'd never goneout-of-state together. The thought of thevacation excited him.

Meanwhile, Angela's assignments inNew York City made it so that she hadhardly seen Don all summer. Her dogbarely recognized her when she wouldbreeze into LAfor a long weekend. Andshe d have so many catch-up- with-life-chores, that she'd barely find the timeto reconnect with Don. Finally, mid-August arrived, she packed up her Man-

/ was gathering advice from Hulipolygynists on how to create a

peaceful-loving household whereeveryone works to make every-one else's life better. Westernconsiderations of jealousy and

competition seemed worlds away.\^ /

hattan apartment and jumped on an-LA-bound plane for the trip she andDon had planned. On the plane she wasseated next to Victor, a stylish 60-some-thing fashion designer. During the six-hour flight to LA, they told each other

their stories...and began to cap-tivate each other. In Angela'smind Victor was everything thatDon was not. Victor was driven,he had a vision of himself and hisfuture, he was part of the NYCart and fashion world; he was aman on the move. In that mo-

ment Victor was light and Don wasdarkness.

When Don met Angela at the LAX,her mind was elsewhere. She gave Dona cursory peck on the cheek and kepther chatter as mindless as possible. Assoon as Don left the next morning, shecalled Victor. And for the next twoweeks she lived for the phone conver-sations with Victor. She begged out ofthe vacation with Don, claiming shehad so much to catch up on in LA.She d fill her days with appoint-ments—getting her hair colored andrestyled, a fresh manicure and of coursea bikini wax. And the first moment shecould return to New York City she did.

Meanwhile, I was studying the intri-cacies of intertribal warfare in 21* cen-tury New Guinea and gathering advicefrom Huli polygynists on how to cre-ate a peaceful-loving household whereeveryone works to make everyoneelse's life better. In that moment, West-ern considerations of jealousy and com-petition seemed worlds away. Thensuddenly I was back on a transpacificflight with rolls of what I hoped weregreat photographs (they were!) andnotebooks filled with data and memo-ries. Don met me at the airport—afterbeing so many time and culture zonesaway, it was really great to see him.

Page 32 Teaching Anthropology: SACC Notes Vol. 9, No. 1 Fall 2002

While she would take Don as herdate to professional functions,

appearing to co-workers as if shewere in an above-board-monoga-mous relationship, in her bones

she felt like a fraud.

We spent the next morning makinglove—reconnecting our bodies and ourspirits. Every so often I'd close my eyesand be back in a Highland village,perched on a log writing up the daysdata, then suddenly the light would ap-pear through the clouds in such a waythat I'd drop everything, grab my cam-era and capture that exquisite moment.That afternoon we picked up myslides...and immediately I wanted toinvite our friends over to see them. NewGuinea had really been a photographers'dream! I orchestrated a barbecue slideshow for the following evening.

With the mud barely scraped off ofmy trekking shoes, Don realized hehadn't heard from Angela (who wasback in NYC) in more than a day and ahalf. It was Labor Day weekend—itwasn't like her to have gone out of townwithout telling him. After 48 hourswithout a word, (she usually calls sev-eral times a day) Don grew frantic. Weworried that she d been in accident andhad no means of contacting us. A pri-vate investigator friend placed somecalls to the NYPD—there were no uni-dentified hospital admissions in the partof New York City she'd been staying.All we knew is that shed checked outof her hotel and left no forwarding in-formation. Don was comatose by thetime our guests arrived for the barbe-cue slide show. We projected the im-ages over our backyard deck, beneaththe starry sky; the people, arts, cloudsand trees of Highland New Guineaglowed. Meanwhile, Don curled up ina dark corner of the house, fearing thevery worst had happen to Angela.

Two days later, Angela called. Shewas fine. She had been reluctant to callbecause she had been staying at Victor'sflat. In that moment, her fantasy to bepartnered with Victor, the Manhattan-mover-and-shaker, had nearly been re-

alized. There was just one hitch. Vic-tor wasn't comfortable sharing Angelawith Don. She'd been ordered to severall ties with Don in order to realize thenext step. She would be returning toLA the next day to "talk things over."

I felt two waves of relief. One, I wasglad Angela was okay—no abduction,accident, etc. And I felt a second quix-otic, yet joyful wave that perhaps "vic-tor would be my savior. I'd often fan-tasized that if only Angela would dis-appear then finally Don and I could re-focus on each other and repair the con-nection that had become so fragmentedsince she had entered our lives. I imag-ined releasing all the pain we'd caused

each other, really listening to each otherand completely opening our hearts.We d open ourselves to the love andintimacy we'd so feared and so avoidedin taking up with others rather thanlooking deep into each other's eyes andeach other's souls. We'd vow to makeour commitment to each other to bemore sacred than anything we'd stir upoutside. In that moment, I was ready tosend Victor the biggest bunch of rosesand the most joyous thank you note I'dever written.

Angela had never been happy shar-ing Don with me—deep down she'dalways wanted him for herself. Whileshe did enjoy the independence of keep-ing her own home, she'd often dreamabout having someone be her full-time,live-in, life partner and lover. Profes-sionally it would have been a disasterif any of her colleagues found out shewere part of a non-traditional relation-

ship. While being gay was okay, shar-ing your lover with another womandefinitely was not. While she wouldtake Don as her date to professionalfunctions, appearing to co-workers asif she were in an above-board-monoga-mous relationship, in her bones she feltlike a fraud. If Victor could becomeher one and only sweetheart/soulmate/life partner, then life would be excep-tionally good. Even her usually aloofsister excitedly jumped for joy at thethought of Angela being in a "normal"relationship.

The only one who wasn't happy withthese new prospects for the future wasDon. In fact, Don was downright mis-erable. Don stopped tending his gar-den, stopped shopping for groceries,virtually ignored his daughter and couldbarely look me in the eye. All waking(and sleeping) hours that he wasn't atwork, he'd be at Angela's. He neededto be there. He needed to find out howthis woman who had so loved him—whose commitment to him seemed soindelible, could have lied about havingmet Victor, lied about why she didn'twant to take a vacation with him andnow was considering leaving him alto-gether.

What had he done wrong? Whatcould he do to bring her back into hislife? How could Victor make such de-mands? Didn't he have any respect forhim and Angela and the long term lov-ing relationship they'd built? Doncouldn't leave Angela's home untilthese answers came clear. No one, noth-ing else mattered. He barely ate, barelyslept; his life as he'd designed it was incrisis. Life with just me would be un-acceptable. I couldn't offer him the at-tention, the connection and the synergythat Angela did. I couldn't generate thecompanionship that she'd offered—shemade him feel seen in a way I'd neverbeen able to. I was too busy with myteaching, my writing, my photographyand all of my friends to really engagehim the way she could. She reallycared. No one else had cared for himthe way that she had.

Don searched for the flaw in Angelathat made her do what she did. In onemoment she'd claim she was in a love-struck daze—perhaps an endorphin

Teaching Anthropology: SACC Notes VoL 9, No. 1 Fall 2002 Page 33

Polyamory...isn ytfor thefainthearted adverturisU

Serious emotions get ignited,compelling passions get

exposed and moreover there'sno safe bricked path back to

sweet, secure monogamy.

spell—and couldn't think for herself.Then later she'd admit that she veryconsciously orchestrated the encounterwith Victor—that she'd wanted a wayout of her relationship with Don. Whileshe hadn't actually dated anyone, shehad entered her profile on an Internetdating service. Moreover, she knewexactly what she was doing by spend-ing her summer vacation in LA primp-ing her body in preparation for a true-blue connection with Victor.

On September 11 two American pas-senger planes flew into the World TradeCenter, another one smashed into thePentagon and a final one crashed into afield in rural Pennsylvania. Angeladidn't return to New York for manyweeks. Like many Americans, our livesfelt indelibly twisted and shaken. Wecould only ask ourselves big questions.On that painful Tuesday, Don, Angela,Xiomara and I took our dogs hiking inthe San Gabriel Mountains; we wereblessed to all be alive and that there wasa place our dogs could run free and thesky was quite blue.

Despite the trauma and insecurity weall felt, Don continued to stay atAngela's. I knew any African co-wifeworth her salt would have headed overthere with her sharpest kitchen knife,making it clear that dominating theirhusband was clearly unacceptable. I feltabandoned and powerless as I preparedfood for Xiomara and myself and staredat televised images of those crashingtowers. At some point I grew numb tothat ubiquitous footage and increasinglyimpatient with Don's "healing" process.He hadn't slept at home in weeks.

While he would say that his absencewas nothing about me, I nonethelesstook it personally. He'd already admit-ted just having me as his partner wasunacceptable. And in one unguardedmoment, the mystery of us fell apart.Pushed into a corner he revealed that

he and Angela had a much more satis-fying sexual chemistry than we did. Ireadily retorted that I'd felt more heatand interest with other lovers as well.In that he wasn't sleeping at home any-way, I grabbed at the last straw therewas and proclaimed that I was no longerinterested in being his lover. Angela hadhad unprotected sex with Victor and aspart of his "healing" process, Don washaving unprotected sex with her. Onjust a viral level, I had no interest inbeing part of their soup.

Polyamory, as we've practiced it, isn'tfor the fainthearted adventurist. Seri-ous emotions get ignited, compellingpassions get exposed and moreoverthere's no safe bricked path back tosweet, secure monogamy. Once some-one else touches your heart, or for thatmatter, deep into your body, you returntransformed. While some swingers maygaze into the distance as they copulatewith strangers they may never encoun-ter again, the unbridled passions thatpolyamory invites, inhabit anotherrealm. Perhaps for my own esteem, Ihad dismissed Don's relationship withAngela. I'd tell myself that all they didwas walk her dog, watch TV and docrossword puzzles. But certainly muchmore had been ignited and a deep andmeaningful synergy had been sustained.And the thought of her disappearing intoVictor's high-powered world of NewYork fashion and design shook Don athis core.

Perhaps the events of September 11were what saved Don and Angela's re-lationship. If she had awakened inVictor's bed that tragic morning, shewould have been blocks from the epi-center, sharing an emotion-chargedevent with a man who felt like a soulmate. Instead she woke up 3,000 milesaway in the loving safety of Don s arms.Air travel was suspended that week.Moreover, it took many more weeks fora version of "business as usual" to re-turn to New York. Victor's urgencyover having Angela break off with Donand be with him became a petty powerplay amidst the real nibble than befelllower Manhattan. In such times of tur-moil we stick with whom we know andwho truly loves us.

In the following weeks Don remained

fearful that Angela still could disappearforever. It had started with fearing herloss in early September and then engag-ing in a quixotic battle with Victor overAngela's soul. It persisted in fears thatif she returned to Manhattan, terroristsmight be aboard her plane, bomb theoffice buildings she worked in or oth-erwise obliterate the woman who knowshis heart and his soul. One day he camehome with a bag of groceries, and as ifnothing much had happen over the lasttwo months, began to cook dinner. Iasked him what was going on. He qui-etly responded, "Nothing much." The"healing" he so needed was well under-way.

One's home base was not one'slove base; there were public

marriages for reputation andprocreation, and then there was

love and romance.

Meanwhile, I had called hundreds ofimaginary realtors in search of a newhome and a new life so that the nexttime an event as earth shattering as Sep-tember 11 occurred I wouldn't be leftalone in bed for so very long. Whydidn't I actually place any of thosecalls? Mostly the world felt too shakyto make a sudden move. And then I'dfret over not being able to afford a homewith a large enough yard for my dog,abandoning Xiomara in the middle ofthe school year and how troubled Donwould be if I took our new kitten aswell. I faced that my home life wasmuch bigger than my relationship withDon. When I considered how veryalone I'd feel in an empty house withjust one neurotic cat, one AustralianShepherd and no external dramas andtraumas, I realized it wasn't what Iwanted to do.

The following month Don and Angelareleased themselves from their quag-mire enough to attend my fifth Papua,New Guinea slide show. While Don didhelp me set up the equipment, I beganto see our very separate archetypes.He's the orphan, while I'm the wan-derer. I'm off sitting inside remotesmoky huts journaling about the chal-

continued on page 38

Page 38 Teaching Anthropology: SACC Notes VoL 9, No. 1 Fall 2002tors)1997 Native Americans and Archae-ologists: Stepping Stones to CommonGround. Alta Mira Press, WalnutCreek, CA.

BorgStede—Continued from page 29

Hill, R. M.1984 Chinamit and Molab: LatePostclassic highland Mayaprecursors of closed corporatecommunity. Estudios de CulturaMaya 15:301-327.

Powell, S., C. E. Garza, and A.Hendricks1993 Ethics and ownership of thepast.the rebuna] and repatriationcontroversy. ArchaeologicalMethod and Theory 5:1-42.

Tax. S.1937 The municipios of themidwestern highlands of Guate-mala. American Anthropologist39:423-444.

Warren, K.1998 Indigenous Movements andTheir Critics: Pan-Maya Activismin Guatemala.. Princeton, NJ,Princeton University Press.

Warren, K. B.1996 Reading history as resis-tance: Maya public intellectuals inGuatemala. In Maya CulturalActivism in Guatemala, edited byE. F. Fischer and R. M. Brown, pp.89-106. Austin, TX, University ofTexas Press.

Wolf, E.1957 Closed corporatecommunites in Mesoamerica andCentral Java. SouthwesternJournal of Anthropology 13:1-18.

Zimmerman, L. J.1997 Remythologizing therelationship between Indians andarchaeologists. In Native Ameri-cans and Archaeologists: SteppingStones to Common Ground, editedby N. Swidler, K. Dongoske, R.Anyon, and A. Downer, pp. 44-56.Walnut Creek, CA, Altamira Press.

Wolfe—'continued from page 33

lenges of traditional polygyny in today'sMissionary-infested New Guinea High-lands, while hevs doing everything hecan to keep his Southern Californiahome and hearth intact. I'm forever fly-ing the coop in search of more amazingpictures and better data, while he's pre-paring food and buying special treatsfor all the people and pets that he loves.While I stay in touch with some of my"exes" and generate love and intensitywith the new men I meet, the women inhis life are much more demanding.They need money, practical assistanceand a steep serving of the nurturingemotion-thick stew he's so adept atcooking up.

When I first told Don I no longerwanted to be his lover, it felt like an at-tention-seeking angry proclamation thatI wouldn't actually keep to. Then, muchto my amazement, I found value in mynewfound status as the emotionally un-fettered public wife. Finally, I releasedall of the jealousy I had towards An-gela; she was no longer my competitor.We now inhabited completely separatearenas. I faced that much of what hadtroubled me over the last five years hadbeen that shed attempted to occupy mydomain, causing me to fear displace-ment. Now that our domains were com-pletely separate, I recovered my esteemand my security. I stopped scrutinizingthe nature of Don's connection withAngela; it held no further interest to me.I remained Don s life partner in the ar-eas of keeping a home, parenting (hisdaughter and our two cats and twodogs), and business (producing videos,photography and books).

With my emotional, sexual and spiri-tual arenas wide open, I quickly builtconnections with other men. And forthe first time in my nine years of rela-tionship with Don, he actually foundone of them to be acceptable! He, Ja-son, lives in a distant town and whenhe visits, Don would graciously stay atAngela's home to give us privacy. Andunlike the single men I'd attempted toconvert to polyamory, Jason very muchlives a polyamorous life. He lives withhis wife and teenage sons while main-taining a passionate connection with his

lover and colleague Rachel. While itseemed that his plate was more thanbrimming, somehow our connectiontook hold. Together we taught eachother about unfettered love—a love thatcould be kindled in spite of all of thereal-life baggage busy mid-life profes-sionals carry. Aside from the fact thatmarriage and owning a home togetherwere not in our mutual futures, we couldlove and engage each other from thecore. There were no limits to our fan-tasies or the real-life ways we'd man-age to actualize them.

Sometimes we'd madly exchange fivee-mails in a day trying to plan businessand professional projects or sort out atheory one of us had conjured up abouthow love, life and relationships work.He d traveled and lived in as many oddand remote places as I had and had com-plete empathy for my experiencer-modeof figuring out human behavior. WhileI'd never given much credence to soulmates, in Jason, I sensed I'd gottenclose. I could tell him more of my truththan I'd told just about anyone else andhe'd make me feel very heard. It wasas if we'd grown up in the same cul-tural stew and serendipitously landed onthe exact same lily pad.

Now most Americans would be prettyunimpressed at the thought of lovingsomeone they could never marry whilstliving with someone who no longer cap-tivated their erotic and emotional soul.The more I thought about this, the moreI faced that this is exactly how humanshave lived for most of civilized time.One's home base was not one's lovebase; there were public marriages forreputation and procreation, and thenthere were love and romance. In OldEurope there were the stately Lords andthen the love-struck Troubadours. InModern Europe there are proper publicmarriages and then the slightly morehidden mistresses. In Latin Americathere is the Casa Grande and the CasaChica. How fascinating that in mysearch for "new" paradigms beyondModern Western Society's embrace ofmonogamy, I landed in one of the old-est paradigms known to humans!

Would living a day-to-day life withDon, spinning lost in paradise fantasieswith Jason, and being open to the many

Teaching Anthropology: SACC Notes Vol 9, No. 1 Fall 2002 Page 39

f orms of Eros that cross my path be myfinal answer? Would a less-fettered Ja-son-type be able to sweep me off myfeet and sweet-talk me into monoga-mous marriage? Could the unadulter-ated fantasies that a distant lover /cour-tesan conjures up ever be sustained in adirty-laundry-need-to-go-grocery-shop-ping day-in-day-out relationship? Ofcourse not. And that's one good reasona very old paradigm made so muchsense to my 21* century life.

One evening, it struck me that it wastime to stop being so angry with Don.With the state of the world as fragile asit is, I faced that as Americans, espe-cially, our days could be numbered. Andfor whatever time we have left, it wouldbe better for us to be lovers than to befoes. With thick calluses from all ofthose layers of emotional estrangement,we reconnected. It wasn't one of thosewide-eyed, full-bodied, full-trust divesinto an optimistic soup of interdepen-dency, it was cautious and it was hon-est. I had no designs on wrestling himback from Angela...and he, too, knewbetter than to try to give me what Jasondoes. I'm a wild, independent adven-turess/anthropologist and he's a hearthtender and an artist. And we're a 21s1

century American couple with our ownamazing story.

Miller—continued from page 35

Barbara Joans has written this ethnog-raphy with both the keen eric eye of ananthropological observer and the emicpassion of an insider. She has presentedher own opinions and perspectivesforthrightly and honestly, even if attimes it pained her to do so. Yet no otheralternative or method could have pro-duced the range of insight or depth ofknowledge that Bike Lust presents. Forthis, the anthropological community andthe reading public are indebted. Rideon, write on, right on, Professor Joans!4

Notes1 Not necessarily a gangster, but onewho defies social conventions, followshis own rules.

2 Member of a motorcycle club whowears an identity patch on his vest orjacket

3 The experience of riding.

4 A personal note: I ride a 1980 HondaCX-500 and I ride alone. Beyondchanging the oil and filter I don'twrench. However, in 59,000 miles I'venever had a mechanical failure on theroad that required wrenching. OT

Tattersall—continued from page 11

AcknowledgmentsI wish to thank Dr Omara Ben Abe

for his kind invitation to participate onthis panel and Lloyd Miller as Editorof Teaching Anthropology: SACCNotes.

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Eldredge, Niles, and Stephen Jay Gould1972 Punctuated equilibria: an alter-native to phyletic gradualism, inModels in Paleobiology. Edited byT. J. M. Schopf, pp. 82-115. SanFrancisco: Freeman, Cooper.

Krogman, Wilton1951. The scars of human evolution.Scientific American 185 (6): 54-57.

Mayr, Ernst1942 Systematics and the Origin ofSpecies. New York: Columbia Uni-versity Press.1982 The Growth of BiologicalThought: Diversity, Evolution andInheritance. Cambridge, MA:Belknap (Harvard University Press).

Simpson, George Gay lord1944. Tempo and Mode in Evolution.

New York: Columbia UniversityPress.

Tattersall, Ian1994 How does evolution work?Evolutionary Anthropology 3 (1): 2-3

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Tattersall, Ian, and Jeffrey H. Schwartz2000 Extinct Humans. Boulder, CO:

Westview Press.

Foster & CrOeS—continued frompage 15

pology/Science unit can work in shar-ing the research, and share the resourcesavailable to each of the team members.We also believe we have shown a gen-eral trend of where American archaeol-ogy/anthropology is headed in the fu-ture. With tribes taking over the respon-sibilities of managing the cultural re-sources in their traditional territories,Anthropologists/archaeologists will in-creasingly have to work directly withtribes in pursuing their own researchinterests. If the desire of each party isto protect the cultural resources andshare the research, a way to formalizethat goal together is to establish a for-mal Cooperative Agreement. The gov-ernmental heads of each of the entitiesshould sign this agreement, in additionto the Cultural Resource Manager of theTribe or Anthropologist at the College.An agreement signed at this higher levelof authority could provide the best vali-dation, authorization, justification andfoundation of trust to pursue these im-portant cultural resource managementgoals as a formal team.

A M E R I C A N

A N T H R O P O L O G I C A L

A S S O C I A T I O N