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#123 Wednesday 31 Jan. 6pm My dearest darling, I've been feeling just execrable since I got your letter this morning (this past week's been the first time separation has really hit my hard, anyhow, in the sense that I can't imagine surviving the long months ahead without you) - the one in which you mention talking to Barbara Corrigan and hearing about the men in Washington and those at Fort Ord. Not so much out of jealousy (though I am jealous, dammit) as out of feeling myself in your place and being mad about it. There's just one thing I can say to it, and small consolation it is - I've met dozens of men (mostly Army, a few Navy) who've been out three and four years without getting back at all. At least I'm certain that that won't happen to us, and comparatively speaking we have something to be thankful for. A representative of the highest MG echelon in Washington (both Army and Navy) spent several days here recently on an inspection trip. As a result of a meeting with him open to questions by any of the officer staff, I know that many of the rumors you have heard recently are untrue (particularly the one about reassignments). So don’t put too much stock in any of them, darling - in heedlessly asking you to keep your ears open for anything you could relay without endangering security I forgot that listening to it would [pg 2] put you right in the midst of that uncomfortable atmosphere of uncertainty and confusion which such rumors always engender. I take that back now - stay away from them if you can. Darling, there is nothing for us to do but reconcile ourselves to the next 14 months, and let from then on take care of itself. Or if there is anything I will be able to do, it is not apparent now and not worth banking on. I’d already considered scheming myself with a teaching job at Ord before you mentioned the men from this general area who are doing that, but I think the likelihood is small, at least at the moment. If it gives you any comfort and strength, especially right now (I need to be that for you as much as you need me to) - you may know that I am writing a letter to that end tonight to somebody in M.G., Hawaii. Judging from the remarks of the same man at the same meeting, I should say that I am likely to be here another three or four months. But that's no guarantee. Wendy's continued cold has me worried, too, sweetie, and if I didn't know you better I’d say, Take good care of that precious one! -Kirby Etter just dropped in for a chat which lasted about half an hour. What he has to say doesn't help any - “It gets worse as time goes on, instead of better.” But, though [pg 3]there isn't a man here who wouldn't go back to school (considered the lowest possible assignment) in order to be home again, I don't think that feeling is typical; it isn't true of Charlie, for instance, or Tel Mook. They both have their own susceptibilities and their jobs are largely of their own creation, whereas Kirby has been sort of kicked around, more or less accidentally, since the beginning. (He's now asst. agricultural officer, the agricultural officer being Riley Ewing - one swell guy, completely without pretensions and one of the most relaxed and natural persons I've ever run across). Kirby brought with him a letter from Bill Bull, who said that you sounded very healthy and alive over the telephone - it's good to hear little firsthand reports like that. He also enclosed a picture of himself and a beautiful blonde “Lady Marine” 2nd lieutenant taken at Bal Tabarin in San Francisco. Congratulations to Ag! Even if she did want a boy she won't, as you say, be a bit sorry. Gosh, my heart just skipped a beat - the radio back of us is playing a song that's a steal from Dearly Beloved - started off just like it. Have you heard it? I feel worse informed than I have for a long time - despite your faithful clipping -so I'm glad to hear that you’re keeping up with things for us. Darling, I don't think I'll ever lose the urge for organized study, either, and in the long run even such work as I am doing now suffers from [pg 4] lack of it. Whether or not such study is directly related to my work it serves to keep me from getting into a rut. Very soon I shall be compelled to undertake the routine job of organizing what I am teaching in English class. I haven't done so yet and I'm beginning to go off on unnecessary little tangents which probably confuse more than they edify my students. How was riding at Pebble Beach with Bev? Did you take Wendy in the car with you? Say hello to Bev for me (I even envy Bud where he is, the way I feel tonight - if he's still on the island of Hawaii - I do want to get there sometime) Now for brief comment on some of your recent suggestions about the future - brief because I’d like to spend the rest of the evening beginning to do something about it. I don't think I'll even write for information to the School of Social Work, not the way I feel just now. I've talked to Henry Graham about it recently and he thinks it would be a very tough grind even with all the fellowships and work-study jobs there are to offer. I don't think I really want that, anyway. I know I don't want any tough grinds and I don't want to be dealing in human miseries when I come back to you. I want us to have a chance to draw in our breath deeply and then let go and enjoy the world as we choose to see and meet it. I think I'm just about completely devoid of the missionary urge per se by now, though of course I retain a normal human curiosity and the ability to respond to a challenging problem of one sort or another. [pg 5] My reason for even considering that field is that lately I've come more and more to realize that a man who hasn't specialized just doesn't have a place in the contemporary world. Even out here where I fitted in right away because of my training in Japanese, I feel frequently a certain discomfort at not having a field of work in civilian life. It's not merely inconvenient in the sense that in casual conversation people who don't know me react as though they find it hard to classify me - that's a minor thing - but it's sometimes disturbing to my own morale in that I realize a certain justice in any tacit looking askance at someone without a definite job, a clear focus. If I were sufficiently strongly gifted in a lot of ways, and developed in them, the need to specialize would be less important - As it is, (in my own estimate) I feel somewhere short of the requisite imagination and capacity for throwing myself wholly into the interest of the moment. That is not self reproach, darling, but only an offhand “estimate of the situation” [Navy language] It is not so much a personal matter, either - one could get along without specializing much better a hundred (and especially 200-150) years ago than one can today. I do not chafe at that as I once did because I see now its positive as well as its negative implications for the individual. Most of them are merely latent, it's true - At any rate, the aftermath of this war is my one big opportunity to set a course, and I am willing to sweat a little for it. The difference between that and a “grind” is largely psychological - [pg 6] the latter is what I’d call something I was not only doing too much of, but didn't like doing in the first place. And if I do have to sweat, I want to sweat over something that interests you too. Not to make you sweat, but to give us more of the common interests of which we’re now being denied a common expression. Yes, I shall seriously consider prep school teaching. But I would much rather teach in college, unless the other setup was ideal, for a number of reasons, in summary just this. My passion is for ideas and conveying them, not for academic discipline. I believe in common sense, love children and have strong ideas about how I want us to bring up ours, but I don't want to fuss with other people's in locus parentis. As a friend of my children and their playmates, that's different. The jump from prep school to college, once the former work has been undertaken, is a difficult one - especially for a man with a family. On the other hand prep schools may prove to be the only teaching field I can muster the resources to get into. It seems to me that (apart from the prep school idea) the only feasible one of your suggestions is getting an exchange fellowship to an Oriental University, taking a PhD or the equivalent there in say 3 years, and returning to the U.S. to teach in college. What would I think about London or Paris? Delightful - but I don't see on what basis. To teach one definitely has to have a field, and what field of study would take me [pg 7] to either place? Darling, I don't know that your future is to be that of a professor's wife, but I certainly wouldn't worry about faculty life. That would take care of itself. I'll be damned before I'll waste much time with people I or we don't like, especially after 3 or more years in the Navy. I sometimes think of houses and cars and things too. So as far as sweating's concerned, I won't make any rash decisions. Have just reread the letter in which you urge me to think about prep schools. (By the way - I know of one or two I intend to write to, but that's not enough - see if you can collect a few addresses for me, both from magazines and if possible from personal acquaintance or hearsay) I will, honey. I’d need a lot of brushing up on subjects, but I feel competent from the administrative standpoint. I don't really like the idea of the work itself, but it might be more agreeable than I think from this present perspective. Right now I'm sick of working at anything - I just want to be in your arms (and not to be mothered, either!) I love you, darling Warren
