Page 6 - C.A.L.L. #28 - Spring 2007

THE GIANT SEA TURTLE IN OUR SHOWER
BY MOLLY PRENTISS

Growing up in community can mystify your friends, but by the time you get to
college, can turn out just fine

A giant sea turtle, dead and stuffed, loomed like a shadow over the shower. The adults had
dragged it home years ago, nailed it to the wall behind the showerhead, and seemed to have
forgotten what it was. To them it became a fixture, a statement, a real piece. To me, already
weighted with the adolescent traumas of growing breasts and kissing boys, this dead turtle
equated to pure embarrassment, epitomizing the abnormality of my family and living situation. I
grew up on a commune: three families, one piece of land, and hundreds of quirky "pieces" like the
tortoise. Combined with our orange velour couch, a neon sign that read "eat!" in the kitchen, and
the unfinished paint-jobs on various walls, the shower turtle became an immense source of stress
when friends would come over to my house. Sleepovers or after school snacks meant explanations
of our communal kitchen, justifications of our barn-shaped houses, and a patient question and
answer period in which I was forced to address subjects like why is the bathroom outside? And
why don't you just live with your own family? I cursed these abnormalities daily as I shampooed
my hair, forced to glare back at the marble eyes of the stuffed turtle.

My friends would arrive at the commune and want to see everything:
"Ohmygosh, take us on a tour!” they would yelp, spreading themselves like
insects over the expanse of wooden floors. I would gather them up Jessica,
Sonya, Meika, Lacey) and shuffle them through the house as if it were a
museum. I was careful to emphasize our restaurant-style dishwasher and
fully stocked pantry, steering clear of rat-traps and cobwebs in corners. I
would show them the enormous circle of a dining room table where we ate
every night, the three-door refrigerator, the personalized mailboxes for each
commune member. Always, there were questions and answers. "Like, where
do you guys sleep?!" Lacey would chirp with the realization that there had
been no bedrooms on the tour so far. "We cook and eat and hang out in the
Molly age 9
big house," I'd explain. "We sleep in the little houses." The girls, intrigued and
puzzled, would follow me like soldiers along brick paths and through overgrown gardens to the
little houses where we slept. "So I don't get it," Sonya would bark, "Where do you shower?" I would
reluctantly lead the group to the communal bathhouse, an open room made up of cement and tile
and three showerheads, and expose them to the immense presence of the turtle. They would
squeal and giggle and I would remember how strange this must all seem to
them: sharing space, sharing showers, and sharing daily lives with people
outside of my bloodline.

In 1979, my parents and a band of ten other idealistic hippies bought "La
Selva," a ten-acre plot of land in Santa Cruz, California, that overlooked the
bay and smelled fresh like oat trees and new beginnings. They pooled their
resources, their skills, and their spirits to envision and create a housing
system based on sharing, coexisting, and community. What started as a
small, overcrowded shack turned into individual wood· framed houses and
sprawling gardens; the commune evolved into a tiny village. Its members
were individuals - artists or stock-brokers or office managers - but also
Author Molly Prentiss today
active members of a cohesive group. Systems developed: each adult cooked
one night a week, everyone showed up for dinner and pitched in with the garden or household
projects. Bills were split, responsibilities were shared. Living each day became something entirely
different from the nuclear norm. Life, both its "dailies" and its ideals, became communal.

The commune was a perfect playing field for the game of growing up: acres of exploring, an
encouraging ensemble of adults, and consistent kid companionship. Six adults made up the core of

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