I am a hybrid-at times a common stereotype, at other times a changeable invention with a dramatic imagination, gradually assembling an elastic self, piece by piece, coherent once in a while, often incoherent or lacking in awareness. My identity has been continually accumulating, for better and worse, never stationary for long, especially during earlier years, but always trying for unity. I had to learn most things from scratch, particularly what goes into feasible relationships. Whatever its origin, strength, and fallibility, an evolving identity did not materialize by accident, legacy, or coercion. In order to own it, I had to earn it. I had to build, repair, and defend it. It did not come free of charge. I am still making adjustments to my intellectual, emotional, and physical equipment in my eighties. My story involves constant learning or correcting-not merely to achieve durability and behave sanely toward others but also to deal competently with natural or social challenges, to reconcile my contradictory reactions, to find a lively, interesting way to live in the world, and to engage in worthwhile labor. Not until my middle forties (here comes another damned growth experience!) did I start to understand two-way communication, my path to long-delayed maturity. Most of the diligent, persistent forays to build a serviceable model had been incomplete because they were self-centered, one-sided. Happily, they eventually led to greater rapport with wife, son, students, friends, and (sometimes) strangers. Two-way exchange enabled me to tie together my disconnected acts, thoughts, and feelings. Now I wish to illustrate its operation and value during my trials as an identity builder.So I shall tell a tale, co-authored with my wife, describing the tussle. Shaoping joins me in this project to contribute an account of her own journey toward stability and self-invention during a grueling challenge to her integrity by oppressive agencies in China. Her brave response contrasted to my floundering. I evolved; she rebelled. We joined forces to defend how we wanted to live.
About the Author: Leonard Moss was born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1931. He attended three state universities (Oklahoma, Indiana, and California), then taught American and European literature at a fourth (SUNY Binghamton and Geneseo). At Geneseo he directed a program in comparative literature until his retirement in 1989. He did not like to lecture: the best part of teaching, he always said, was swapping ideas with his students. He learned as much as they did from the lively give-and-take of guided discussions. As a Fulbright professor he chaired the English Department at the University of Athens in 1976-77 and taught graduate students at the Foreign Studies University in Beijing in 1985-87 and 1993-94. The peak years of his career were spent in China, where he met and married, after overcoming bureaucratic nonsense, Shaoping Wu, a spirited English teacher. They co-authored a memoir recalling their courtship, travels, and adventures. They also co-authored a son, Eli, now an explorer in genetics. Professor Moss edited the journal of the Rhode Island Jewish Historical Association in Providence from 1998 to 2004. During fifty years of research and writing he wrote books on Arthur Miller, Joseph Conrad, tragedy and philosophy, and Darwin and literature, completing these projects by the age of eighty-five. "Revision is the key to vision," he would say. "I may not have the brainpower of a genius, but I am persistent." After retirement, he enjoyed reading and writing, swimming and walking, drawing, choral singing, and nurturing tomato and pepper plants. Above all, he delighted in his wife, a technology librarian at Mt. Holyoke College, and their talented son. The three were good companions and enjoyed vacationing at Cape Cod before relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area. The sea, sun, and sand, he believed, were more therapeutic than any doctor. His grateful conclusion after a long, rewarding, sometimes arduous journey through life-"mission accomplished." On that subject, he liked a poem by Emily Dickinson, his favorite poet: I stepped from plank to plank A slow and cautious way, The stars about my head I felt, About my feet the sea. I knew not but the next Would be my final inch- This gave me that precarious gait Some call experience.