In her comment, Jooliedee asked after my post about London two days ago what I meant about “holding on to one’s self.” It is, I think, a confusing, jumbled up process. Not neat and clean like solving a mathematical equation or even like applying for a bank account.
My first London – the first place my world expanded in a big bang creating a whole new universe – was New York City. I was 26 years old and after nine years, had just walked out of the convent. I had no idea how naive I was. I only knew that New York in 1966 felt like the most exciting place in the world. And I thought that young people were about to overthrown the old stodgy, hypocritical ways of the past.
We were marching for civil rights and then against the Vietnam war. We were experimenting with drugs and free sex, with Woodstock music and living in communes. I resisted the last, but none of the others.
It seemed to me that everyone else knew what they were doing, and it was only I who was overwhelmed. I was living in Greenwich Village while I studying for my Ph.D. at the New School for Social Research and was whirling.
I was whirling, but I wasn’t having an absolutely fabulous time. I was disoriented, confused, and often unhappy. I did not understand how casual sex was for the men I slept with and was beginning to develop a bitter edge. I was succeeding brilliantly in my studies, though, and was lucky enough to land a university position within weeks after earning my degree.
Gradually I began to right myself, to choose what I wanted to take from New York and what I didn’t. And finally I met Peter. That made all the difference.
Looking back, how would I say one can “hold on to one self”?
A young college student came into my office once. She was distraught because she’d slept with someone the night before and hated herself for it. No, I said, don’t hate yourself. Learn about yourself. Learn that you are someone who doesn’t like to sleep around. That’s not true of everyone. But it is for you.
That is what I would say about every new experience. Don’t take drugs just because everybody else is doing it. Decide what you want for yourself. I smoked marijuana regularly until I found the hassle of getting it was more trouble than it was worth. In truth, I might still be smoking it if it were legal, and even now I support the legalization of drugs. I’m too chemically volatile to try anything like LSD or crack. And I don’t personally want to take the kind of risk drug-taking involves. But it’s my choice, not someone else’s.
I’d say the same thing about alcohol, about how much money someone wants to make, the things they want to buy, the clothes they wear, the friends we choose, the parties one goes to, where we chose to live, the jobs we look for. Try things out, yes! but then make up your own mind. That is the crucial part. Don’t just wake up the next morning and stumble on.
Above all, don’t just go along with the crowd. Because one can’t do that and still hold on to one’s self.

Several weeks ago while I was waiting for a plane at Heathrow Airport, I wandered into the local Starbucks for two lattes. While I was waiting, a brother and sister, about 12 and 10, came in and ordered a chocolate drink, a latte, and two espresso to go. When the clerk told the older brother the cost, he said “wait a minute,” and went away, presumably to get another pound or two from the waiting adults. But he returned and said he didn’t have the money.
Or creative.