[First Draft, cont’d]
“Everybody’s talking about where they’re going next year, after graduation.” Al had Jet in a headlock, the Golden loving every second of his master’s attention.
“And…” I said.
“And, I don’t know what I want yet. I thought you were going to apply again for midwifery school.”
“There’s a few I wrote to, asked for applications.”
He raised his eyebrows. I went on. “Frontier School of Midwifery, in Kentucky? That would be where I want to go. They’ve been around forever, I like the vibe of the place. More natural, helping the poor people in Appalachia.”
He released Jet, giving him a final scratch behind the ears. “I don’t know…Kentucky…it’s east of the Continental Divide, you know. Humid, no mountains…”
He stood up and walked into the enclosed front porch. Barefoot, wearing bell-bottom muslin pants, string tie dangling in front, and a matching loose-fitting un-ironed shirt, with his shoulder-length wavy sun-beached hair and mid-summer beach tan, a familiar tug entwined me.
Why can’t I do what I want, for once? I thought. “Wait,” I said. I hurried after him.
The morning light, filtered through the porch windows, glittered prismatically on the scraggly plants Al had planted in small rust-colored pots. “There’s also a program in Salt Lake. University of Utah. The only one in the west,” I said.
He brightened, turning to look down Wavecrest to the beach. “Salt Lake City! That’s where Snowbird and Alta are.”
My heart began a war with the anger in my stomach, the thoughts of independence in my head. Was I going to let a man tell me what to do once again, take me away from where I wanted to go?
“Is that a good school, Utah? That’d be really cool if you went there,” he said. “Should we go and look at it?
*******
Flying into Salt Lake one October weekend, the cloudless sky, snow-capped mountains, and blazing orange trees covering the valley floor contrasted with a tang of bitterness I still felt on having my choices restricted. From the middle seat, Al leaned over me and pointed out the window.
“That must be where Alta is, up that canyon! And down there, see the Temple, and the Capitol? Is that the University, up against the hills?”
Friday morning, I had an interview with the program director. I had wondered what we would do the rest of the time, but she scheduled a series of visits. I told her about my interest in Anthropology in college; she set me up with a University professor of clinical anthropology, Madelyn Leininger. I met with some current students, who rhapsodized about their classes, professors, and clinical work in locations at an Air Force base and down in New Mexico on the Navajo reservation. I began to feel as if I could fit in there. There would be friends to make, a new city to discover.
Heading to my meeting with the anthropology professor, I thought about why I was doing this why I wanted to be a midwife. Women having babies is so basic, the start of everyone’s life. At LA County Hospital, I’d seen how women from all over the world, Mexico, Nigeria, Korea, so many places, acted differently in labor.
“But they all loved their newborns when they first held them,” I told Dr. Leininger.
“It’s like that here, too,” she said.
“Really? I thought Salt Lake was all Mormons, having a lot of babies, but isn’t it kind of all the same.”
She laughed. “No, it’s a very cosmopolitan place here. The LDS Church sends young people on missions, to so many different countries. There are little enclaves of immigrants all over the town as a result.”
“I wonder what that’s like, seeing how women from other cultures go through pregnancy, take care of their babies,” I said.
“You’d be coming into a Master’s program here, you know. You’d have to write a thesis to graduate. Maybe that’s something you could explore for yours!” she said.
*******
After Al had finished his post-skiing soup and bread, he said, “Driving home, I heard on the radio about this ice cream place that’s having a sale – they called it ‘a cold day in January’. I mean, really, what is it with this town and ice cream? Baskin and Robbins is a run-of-the-mill place here. Utah has ice cream parlors like other places have bars.”
“Because they don’t have bars?” I speculated. “They can’t smoke cigarettes, aren’t allowed to drink. So sugar is their big vice?”
Al began to write his short summary of the day’s skiing in a red spiral notebook. He closed his eyes as he counted the runs, then jotted down brief details in a line or two.
“I met with my thesis advisor today,” I said.
“Hmmm,” came the response as he closed the notebook.
“When I mentioned I wanted to do a cross-cultural study of birthing practices, we had a great idea.”
“What do you mean, ‘cross-cultural’?” he asked.
“You know at County, how the women from different countries all acted different during labor?”
“Yeah. Of course, there was a lot of ‘Ai, doc-tor!’. But Korean women, they were so silent, enduring, holding it in. And I remember Nigerians, they would snap their fingers and click their tongues,” Al said.
“I want to expand beyond labor. That’s all we saw at County. But there’s so much more to being pregnant, before, during and after. And not just what individual women do, but the whole societal attitude towards mothers, and pregnancy and everything.”
“How can you do a thesis about all that? It’s so broad,” he asked.
“That’s what we talked about. There’s a community of Tongan women…” I started.
“Tongan?”
“Yeah, Tonga. It’s an island in the South Pacific.”
“Never heard of it. Like Samoa, or Fiji?”
“I guess,” I said. “Anyway, she knows some of them, could get me into their church or something, and I could start meeting them, interviewing them.”
“What’s the thesis? What are you trying to prove?” Al asked.
“Not prove anything. The point would be to document how their pregnancy, especially their birth experience, differs between here and Tonga. Find some women who had babies there, and then came here and had a kid. Interview them and look for common threads, I guess. Document the differences.”
Dylan jumped up on the table and started sniffing Al’s soup bowl. Instead of shooing him away, or, even worse, picking the cat up and tossing him on the floor (something he’d done a few times until I demanded he stop), Al began to gently scratch him just above the tail, then rubbed his head softly from the nose up between his eyes, to a final ear scratch on either side.
“Look, you’re not sneezing or sniffling!” I observed.
“Yeah, that nose spray really works,” he said.
“What’s it called again? I asked.
“Nasalcrom. It prevents the mast cells from releasing the stuff that causing the symptoms, the itchy eyes and nose. I got it cause I’m allergic to spring, but it’s good for the cat as well.”
I’d always had a cat, but when I moved in with Al, he said he was ‘horribly allergic” to them. I’d thought that was another thing I’d have to give up if I wanted to live with the man, like going to school east of the Rockies.
After we bought the house in the Avenues, I moved from my little apartment down the hill. He was still in Manhattan Beach at Gary and Karen’s, and I needed a companion, a daily reminder of who I was. I found a little fluff ball and introduced him to Al when he came up for Thanksgiving. I was fearful he’d erupt, complain about his allergy. Instead, he offered the name “Dylan”, and took to the little guy right away.