xiv
Dear Mike,
I’ve been thinking [about you] quite a bit lately, so it seemed time to write. This past week Harvard Med has been announcing interneships. I suddenly realized that you too are about to become a doctor. How incredible. And I wondered what specialty you had decided on & where you were going.
I called when I was in LA at Christmas. The parents & I went out to see Linda. Unfortunately it was disastrous + I left early + did not return with them to Cincinnati, where your roomates told me you were. Linda is still being a scientologist + LA is Mecca for that – I found it disturbing, but I keep out of it, since she gets more than enough shit about it from my parents; her marriage is not working very well, but she does seem happy with the scientology.
I am struggling through being a first year graduate student. Classes are boring, and the academic quality is abysmal— I’m at B.U.. Next year I start clinical work + I’m eager for it, though I’m now interviewing for placements + it’s hell for me; I hope to be at the Beth Israel, but otherwise I’ll be at Children’s. I’ve become interested in working with adults which I feel is a positive sign + will do my internship in some adult or joint child-adult program. This year my placement is my old job with Brazelton which I still enjoy – newborns are incredible + amazingly individual + our research on early mother-child interaction is going well.
Today in the NY Times there was an engagement of a woman to D—— Winter which also reminded me of you. One of my roomates is the sister of David R—— who remembered you from JCU; he filled me in on many of the highlights of the Winters’ affairs. Also, my brother Charlie + his family now live in Wadsworth. Last year he sat in on classes there at Calvin in ethnomusicology + they bought a house there. They now have three children — last weekend I went down to see the newest niece, 7 days old. I got to Hartford (I had a ride down with Howard, who was going to NY + he left me there [Hartford]) + I simply couldn’t get out of the car — I felt too desolate. One of the few things I could make sense of was simply the rush of feelings when I came or left from visiting you — just the feelings. Currently I am very involved with feelings about being alone and deserted in therapy + and that helps as an impetus, but the whole thing reminded me of all the unfortunate neurotic overlay I brought to our relationship.
Yes, I’m still in therapy + very involved with it. It’s made the year very heavy – at times doing + studying about therapy can be rather devastating + there is little discussion of our own craziness at B.U. Do you ever consider still being a shrink? Right now therapy + feelings are pretty much the focus, + I attempt to keep up with school + work. Howard and I are not doing well, probably related to heavy times in therapy for both of us. + I am slowly in the process of moving out of the house (we have a nice, big place near Porter Sq; four of us who lived together last year + 3 women who were roomates at Radcliffe). I’m not exactly sure what I want now for living situations next year, and I’ve been moving slowly + depressingly. I suppose all this also brings back the past – I’ve been listening to Leonard Cohen a lot lately, but it’s too confusing and active to be very verbal now.
I spoke to Leslie Friday – it was her birthday. She is in Aptos – her boyfriend is at Santa Cruz; she’s working part-time. Jeanne + probably Bev will be back East next year + Larry B—— will be at Children’s. Marcia is well though rather discouraged with medical school + contemplating a year off. Rachel is married and expecting a baby in May or June.
I would really like it if you wo wrote or called. I have all sorts of projections/fears that you didn’t reply to my last letter because I expressed feelings about your being a gynecologist; but good heavens, how could I not have feelings about your being a gynecologist? Recently I was talking with Marcia about my feelings and curiosities about you; the most sense I can make of it is that it is perhaps unreal + “crazy” of me to still care about you + and what you are doing, but I cannot deny that I do have these feelings + curiosities + can express them to some extent. And so even if you do not write back I probably will try again sometime— my curiosity is also made of genuine caring, much of it being rediscovered as I uncover other parts of my past + attendant feelings in Therapy.
Things I’ve been reading lately – where I’ve been somewhat more intellectually/emotionally— Lillian Hellman, Tillie Olsen (Tell Me A Riddle), Juliet Mitchell; also— Margaret Atwood – someone you might really like – The Edible Woman, the poetry, + Surfacing, which I have mixed reactions to; Adrienne Rich. I’ve been reading a lot about + by women. It’s become my own interest + also the best course I’m taking is on the Psychology of Women. Being a therapist working with women has become more a goal for me, with an eye to things like feminist therapy. So, at my strong moments that’s where my thoughts tend.
I hope I’ve not
Anyway, this is a true effort to reach out to you – for what I’m not exactly sure, though I hope you write back.
With love,
Sarah.
10 March 1974
My address here is — Orchard St., Cambridge, 02140
My parents have moved in Cincinnati but are still there. How is your mother?
xv
Marcia and I met for dinner the last Friday in March, at one of my favorite spots in Porter Square.
“I don’t suppose they’ll be setting up out on the sidewalk any time soon, not after last night,” she observed. “That was a cold one. Did you sleep OK? Your boiler ever get fixed? Or is it still down jacket weather inside your place at night?”
“It was cold – I was cold – last night.” I dropped my head dejectedly, trying hard not to cry. Marcia had known me too long, though.
“Howard?”
“Uh-hum,” I mumbled. Lifting my head up towards her, I flippantly offered, “Howard may not have been good for much at the end, but at least he kept me warm at night.”
“He’s really gone? To Israel?”
We found a table at a window looking out on Mass Ave. “He’s gone. Over a week now,” I returned. “I don’t know why I feel so cliche – ‘can’t live with him, can’t live without him.’ He got a one-way ticket. And even if he did come back, those feelings – my feelings, whatever they were – have disappeared. Not gone with him, simply gone.”
“What do you mean, ‘Whatever they were’, your feelings?”
Composed again, I managed to look straight at her. “We worked so well together, a regular team, Howard and I. And I’ve never had a closer friend, or someone I admired so much. ‘Admired’, past tense. He used to be so…committed, driven, to setting things right. But once he actually got out into the fight, at the law clinic, it was as if he were cast adrift, no ambition.” I frowned at the menu, full of burgers and beers. “It got a little awkward at the end, to tell the truth, the way he adored me, always insisting I tell him ‘I love you.’ Even when he knew I didn’t feel it, like he was insecure?”
“Sometimes you didn’t feel it, or always? At least the last couple of years, when I’ve been around you, it wasn’t the same as…” She caught herself, as if afraid to say the wrong thing.
“The same as what? I don’t know if I ever felt about Howard the way I did with…”
Marci said, as if shifting topics, “You said you wrote to Mike Harrison?”
“Three weeks ago. It was Matching Day for med students, and I got curious, what he’d decided, where he’d go this summer, for internship and all.” I tried to switch to safer ground. “It’s a year away for you, have you figured it out yet?”
“Psychiatry for sure, and New York or here, but of course, no idea yet until I interview places.” Now it was her turn to frown at the menu. “I don’t feel like eating here, do you?”
“Not any more”, I laughed. “Let’s go back, see what’s in the cupboards, OK?”
On the way over to Orchard Street, I took her arm, and said, “Marcia, I need some help…I feel like calling Mike…”
“He hasn’t written back yet?”
“He can go months to reply to my letters. It’s his birthday soon, something’s telling me I need to find out about where he’s going next year.”
“Are you sure, Janie – Sarah? You don’t need to go there. I mean, not right after Howard left. Isn’t that a little obvious, looking back to your ex for comfort?”
But I couldn’t help myself. A week later, on the night before his birthday, I called at 9 PM, hoping he’d be home in LA.
“Hello?” his familiar baritone greeted me. I was grateful I didn’t have to go through one of his roommates.
“Mike? It’s Sarah – Janie – Sarah Stein.”
“Hi!” He sounded pleased. “I got your letter. Been meaning to write, but we’ve been going skiing the past couple of weekends, up at Mammoth, and that’s a 12 hour round trip to get there and back…”
Quickly, I said, “Skiing. I understand. Listen, it’s your birthday tomorrow – Happy 25 – and I was thinking about you, so I decided to call. I got curious, where are you going, for internship?” I got that all out in one gulp, and hoped he’d launch into one of his extended explanations.
“Oh, right. I’m staying here! In OB, you know.”
“OB? Why?”
He sighed, sounding hesitant. “Yeah, you kind of pooh-pooh’d that, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t really mean to make you feel weird about it, Mike.”
“Well, you did. But it feels so right for me. There’s a little bit of everything. Surgery, office work, even a little bit of counseling. The big thing for me, what really draws me, is the babies. To be around that happiness…the smile on a new mother’s face, after she’s worked so hard, hurt so much, it all melts away when she sees, feels that little one fresh in her arms. Being around that everyday, it melts away all the bad things. I learned the past four years, that illness, sickness, is not exciting to me. I mean, my roommates, who are going into Internal Medicine? They get so excited dealing with intractable problems, always another question to ask, another test to order. All I feel about that is, I’ll never know enough to do a good job there. OB, it’s different. Your job is to make sure everything stays safe, so the mother and her family can have the birth they want. Some OBs, if they don’t see a problem, they go out of their way to find one, so they can be a hero. Me, I only want to be around that happiness, be there at the start of so many stories. Every now and then, I get to use my hands to help the baby out. It’s like being a music teacher, sometimes – I know what needs to happen, and I help her figure out how to play her instrument.”
He’d paused for breath, so I inserted, “Where? Which program?”
“I said, here. My first choice, and I didn’t really have a second one.”
“Why there? What’s so good about LA?” Mentally, I grimaced, imagining Mike throwing a frisbee on a beach, chasing it into a wave, then body-surfing onto shore.
“Couple of things, It’s so busy here at LA County hospital, I know it’s the kind of place where I’ll be able to learn, by doing. I don’t do well sitting in a lecture, taking notes. I have to deal with the actual problem, get my hands messy, so to speak. And here, the attendings, they simply aren’t around. So the residents, they’re in charge, the senior resident, he’s the last line of defense.”
My feminist antennae instantly went up. “He?”
“Well, yeah, you’re right, they’re all men, at least up to now. But in my class, the ones coming in, there are three women out of twelve. And seeing how things are going in med schools, I bet the balance will tip soon enough. I may become a dinosaur. I don’t see why it should be an issue though. If only male doctors could take care of men, and only female doctors, women, is that right? What kind of a world is that, segregated by sex, by gender?”
I stayed silent, so he went on. “And the other thing, this is not only the largest program in the country, it’s also the best.”
“Really? Better than Harvard?”
He laughed. “Yeah. Four or five years ago, USC decided to make their Women’s Hospital a mecca. They hired Dr. Quincey, the editor of the most prestigious journal, and he started stealing people from all the programs, in New England, and New York. He took practically the entire OB department from Yale, where they literally invented fetal monitoring. Same thing with GYN Oncology, cancer surgery. I’m not someone who has an ambition to be a professor or department chair, I want to actually help people, help women, directly. That’s why I became a doctor to begin with, one of the reasons, and this is the best place in the country learn how to do that.”
“I’m a little sorry, I guess, that you’re not going to be a shrink.”
“I decided I didn’t want to sit around on my rear end eight hours a day, listening to people tell me how bad the world is. And dealing with crazier people, we still don’t know what causes psychosis, or what works with it. They can tamp it down, make people zombies with drugs, but curing them? No.”
Finally, he seemed finished, so I said, “You know, I was in LA last Christmas. You were back in Cincinnati, they said. Seeing your parents?”
“Yeah.”
“How’s your mother?”
“She has a clinical practice going now, seeing patients and all. That cancer, the stroke, it took a while, but she didn’t give up.’
“Anything else? How long were you there for?”
He hesitated. “Actually…I went back for a six week rotation in urgent care at Cincinnati General.”
“Why on earth would you go back there for something like that?”
Again, the line went silent for a few seconds. “OK, I guess it can’t hurt me now. It was Molly. I had this stupid idea we could get together…”
“Sounds like a ‘but…’,” I offered.
“But…yeah, it just wasn’t there, you know.”
Boy did I ever. Now it was my time to be silent. Finally, “Howard’s gone. For good, I think.”
“Oh?”
“He’s gone to Israel, to live, work on a kibbutz. I don’t know…No, I don’t care…if he ever comes back.”
“I’m sorry,” Mike said with an actual hint of concern in his voice.
“It’s OK. I mean, the next 5 years, I expect I’ll be totally enmeshed in this program at BU. That’s where I want to put my energy, my commitment.”
There was another awkward pause during which I heard my therapist in my head, telling me, “You have to ask him…” so I ventured, with a lilt, “So, how’s your sex life?
Thankfully he returned the laugh, saying, “Hah! Not so much these days.” He paused. I could almost see him chewing over the next thing before he came out with, “But I did meet someone, last night in fact.”
Surprised to feel genuinely interested, I asked, “Who? Where?”
“It was at the hospital – where else? April – funny name, huh? We were both in the lab, waiting to spin a hematocrit, and kind of fake-fought over who got to use the machine next. She’s a new nurse, an RN waiting for her license to come through, and of course, I’m still a medical student for a couple more months. So we wondered about protocol, who had priority.”
“Who won?”
“She let me go first.”
Curious, I asked, “Is she younger than you?”
“That’s funny – her birthday is two days after mine, we found out, so we’re both still 25, for a few more days. She said, ‘Be sure and tell me what 26 is like, next time you’re on call’.”
“Cute…”
“Uh, I took that as a good sign, so I said, why don’t we celebrate our birthdays when we get off the morning after.”
“So you asked her out?”
Surprised, he answered, “Yeah, I guess I did.” He chuckled, “We’ll see how that goes.”
Feeling bold, I asked, “What’s she like, look like I mean? Her hair?”
“Don’t know, she had on one of those bonnets we have to wear in the delivery room. Blonde, I’m pretty sure”
We both fell silent for a few seconds, and I could sense the call coming to an end. Still, the therapist-in-my-head made me say, “Mike, I am…” I worried over the next word. Happy was not right, not honest. Still, I did want his life to go well, so I tried, “…I’m glad you’ve found your calling. Be careful with the women you see, you take care of – they’ll need a good doctor, a caring doctor, I know you can do that for them, OK?”
He said, in a serious tone, “All right. OK.”
“Oh, and Mike? This nurse? Please don’t try to win her with any fake charm. Just be yourself. If that doesn’t work, she’s not good enough for you. Hear me?”
He sighed, saying simply, “Uh-huh…”
The line between us sounded dead, so I tried, “And, Mike, please write. I really do want to hear, to know who you are and what happens to you, no matter where, no matter when.”
“I will, I really will. I promise.”
xvi
After we hung up, I wondered, as I had several times before, if those were the last words we’d say to each other. Images flooded my memory, and I knew I had to turn them off, or at least turn away from them. With Howard gone, I’d have to face it on my own. A growth opportunity, I decided.
Grabbing a piece of stationary, I began to write whatever random thought angled through my mind. “Everything that happened was supposed to happen.” And, “Everything that was supposed to happen, did.” A start, I thought, but what am I supposed to learn from this, from Howard leaving, from Michael Harrison poised towards an unknown future, a continent away? Someone down the hall put on a Rolling Stones record from long ago. After a primitive 3-note riff from Keith Richards, Mick Jagger’s 21-year old voice, muffled by the walls between us, began to sing. Whoever had put on this scratchy old album turned up the volume, just in time for me to hear, “Well, this could be the last time, this could be the last time…”
Oh, right, I thought. That’s all I need. I grabbed my coat, stormed out of the house, and walked the 20 minutes to Marcia’s. Along the way, Mick’s refrain morphed into my own inner drumbeat. Left foot, Howard; right foot, Michael. I almost saw their faces in the jagged concrete sidewalk as I marched along. My own face must have frozen into a mask of determination, as Marcia said when I barged in on her, “Whoa! What fired you up? What’s going on?”
I had my speech ready. “Marcia, that’s the last time I let a man, let love or sex, or feeling safe, protected, try and meld with me. Let one rule my feelings or my life. They get to to do what they want, go wherever. Why not me? Why not us?”
“What brought this on?”
I fumed, “I called him up.”
“Mike? You didn’t call him up, after I told you not to…?”
I clenched my jaw, and said, “Sorry, but I had to. I had to find where he’s at.”
“So how’d it go?” she asked
“During the call, pretty good. Not scary. It was like we fell right into to talking, sharing. It was like we were trying to rhyme with some other time.”
“Rhyme with another time? Past, or future?”
I frowned, “I’m pretty sure it’s not the future. He’s staying in LA, four more years.” I sat down disgustedly. She disappeared into her tiny kitchen, returning with two glasses and a half-full bottle of Pinot noir.
“I know you don’t drink, but, Sarah, you need this. Here.”
I didn’t question the suggestion. After the initial fire going down, an after-taste remained, soothing both my tongue and nose. Within minutes, my head felt light, my shoulders lost their tension, and I fell back into the easy chair. Marcia smiled. “Thanks,” was all I said.
Three weeks later, Marcia called, saying, “Sarah, how’ve you been?”
“Oh, all right I guess.”
“Getting out at all?”
“Honestly, no. But it’s good, I’ve gotten all caught up on classes. Even found out where I’ll be for clinical. Beth Israel.”
“Yay?” Marcia asked.
“Yay,” I answered. “The best place. I’m ready for the next steps.”
“Well, listen, I think you should get out…”
“I told you, Marcia, I’m done. For now any way…”
She interrupted, “No, not that. Girls’ night out. Remember that girl, freshman year, Bonnie, always playing the guitar and signing in the lounge? Well, apparently, she’s making records now. On tour. She’s going to be at the Harvard Square Theater next Thursday. Let’s go see her, OK? It’s $4, They still have tickets.”
“When?”
“Seven for the first show, then another one at ten.”
We got there in time to see the opening act, a scruffy-looking multi-racial crew who opened with an extended piano solo, almost classical, by the suave, be-spectacled black piano player, backed by a long-haired white bassist. The black drummer hunched over bongos, softly underscoring a quiet but insistent beat. Off to one side, the white organist dreamily filled in with ethereal chords, while a large black man nodded his head, his saxophone appearing impossibly small in his giant hands. Then, the spotlight followed a skinny dark-haired boy, sporting a scruffy beard, who carried a worn electric guitar over his shoulder. For the next ten minutes or so, he hummed and sang his way through lyrical images about Sandy, a fish-lady, and some junkman.
At the end, puzzled, I turned to Marcia, asking, “I thought this was a rock and roll show?” Before she could answer, the singer broke into a self-satisfied grin, saying, “How you all doin’ out there? These guys, they’re my E Street Band, and I’m here to tell you a little story, about a girl I went out with a while ago. She took my heart, for a month or so, and then gave it back to me, all battered and bruised. Right, fellows?” The rest of the band murmured assent, a call-and-response from his congregation. He launched into a ’50’s do-wop number, called I Sold My Heart To The Junkman. The show went on like that for 90 minutes, see-sawing between gritty urban vignettes and rousing, foot-stomping odes to the vicissitudes of youth, ending with a tribute to “a girl I once knew,” Rosalita.
Bonnie’s set was more straightforward, bottleneck blues, country-tinged laments, tight, professional, ending with the complaint, “how the hell can a person go to work in the morning, come home in the evening with nothing to say?”
When the applause died down, I asked Marcia, “She was good, sounds better than when we heard her out in the quad. But that first guy – what was his name?”
“Bruce-something?” Marcia responded.
“Anyway, he’s intriguing.” I looked around, trying to see if we could avoid leaving, and found a hidden nook near the back. “Let’s stay, and see the second show, OK?”
Marcia shrugged, saying, “What else do I have to do, except get up at 5:30 for rounds?” We both laughed.
Bruce-something played for two hours in the late show, packing even more energy into his songs. Half-way through, he said, “Here’s a new one, if you wanna get up and stomp your feet…” The drummer led with a blazing tom-tom riff, arms moving faster than a hummingbird’s wings. The entire ensemble played at full throttle all the way through, a working class paean to cars, amusement park rides, chilly nights on the beach, and romance – “I wanna die with you, Wendy, on the street tonight, in an everlasting kiss…together we can live with the sadness, I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul…someday we’ll get to that place…” By the time he got to Rosalita again, the whole crowd was swaying, clapping, insisting he continue. So he came back out and did Twist and Shout, saying, “my doctor told me not to sing this song again, my heart can’t stand it. But you guys are worth it!”
Finally, outside, Marcia asked, “What did you think?”
“I liked him, I really did.”
“Why?”
“He gives me hope. For the future, for my future.”