Triblog

!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!

“Anytime” came sooner than I’d imagined. Friday evening as I rode home, I started feeling some cramps. By the time I got to the bathroom, a little blood with a small clot plopped out. I called the health plan consulting nurse, hoping to be told to “lie down and check with us in the morning.” Instead, she said, “You can stay home if you like, but there’s no way to know for sure what is happening or what might be going on without an exam.”

“If I stay here, how would I know if have to come in?”

“If the cramps or bleeding get worse, then you really should,” was the answer.

“Is there anything I can do to stop this?”

“I’m sorry, that’s a question you’d have to ask the doctor.”

After hanging up, I pulled out a couple of books I’d bought that week to support my anticipated journey. In addition to the new version of Our Bodies, Ourselves, on impulse I’d purchased Spiritual Midwifery, thinking it might offer an alternate perspective to the medicalized obstetrics I’d encountered throughout my career. It offered stories of women living on “The Farm”, an evolved post-hippie commune in Tennessee. Attempting independence and self-sufficiency, the author, Ina May Gaskin, had taught herself and others about pregnancy and childbirth. They became midwives to their community’s burgeoning population. Starting with mostly joyful, and sometimes sad stories of births, Ina May then detailed what happens during pregnancy, how to keep yourself safe, what can go wrong, and what to do if it does. I flipped to the short section on “miscarriage”, and learned that “…two out of every ten women will have some spotting in the early months, but only one of them will have a miscarriage.”

Somewhat reassured, I was able to fall asleep, but was awakened by a gooey wet feeling between my legs. Just a smear this time, on the insides of both thighs, but enough to send me searching for Stephanie Seacrist’s business card.

“Sarah, you really should come in. Now. I’ll see you here, take a look, we’ll talk.”

I headed back to Women’s Hospital, the cramps increasing all the way. By the time I limped through the ER doors, I knew more blood was coming out. Stephenie was there to catch me as I staggered towards a gurney, helping me lie down while she said to the nurse at her side, “Set her up in the gyn room, with a sterile speculum and some ring forceps, please.” Looking at me with her eyes, enlarged by her glasses, she asked, “Cramping?”

I moaned affirmatively.

“It’s OK, you’ll be all right…”

“The baby?”

“Let me look, then we can talk, all right?” She gave my hand a squeeze, then helped lift me onto the exam table. After the nurse had removed my pajama bottoms, Stephanie said, “Sarah, you’ll have to put you heels into the stirrups now. I’m going to drop the foot of the bed, then tilt you back a bit.”

She talked me through putting in the speculum, adjusted the light above her shoulder, and asked, “Can you get me some four-by-fours?” The nurse ripped open a package of gauze wipes, and then I heard the “click” of an instrument, while Steph said, “Just cleaning things off here…” and then, a “Plop” as something fell into the stainless steel bucket below the table. 

“What was that?” I asked fearfully.

“Oh, some blood, a clot…OK, I see it now,” she said, as I felt a sudden, short cramp which reverberated several times, then passed. “Nurse?” Dr. Seacrist asked as I heard her metal stool swivel while a jar cap was unscrewed, then screwed back on. “OK, Sarah. The bleeding’s all stopped now. Let me just take this out…” And then I was lying with my legs  straight again, looking pleadingly at Stephanie Seacrist.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Sarah.” She took my hand in both of hers, and said, “There was nothing we, nothing you could do.”

My chest tightened, first with a deep sadness, then a sudden resolve, awareness that, whatever had happened in my womb, my life, my future would go on. “Was it…” I managed, gripping her hands firmly.

“There’s really not much there, just the placenta and some unformed tissue. What we call a ‘blighted ovum’.”

“Blighted…” I tried.

“Yes, a lot of conceptions, things don’t go right from the start. The baby never really forms, probably a misfire of the chromosomes coming together improperly. Would you like to see?”

The practical, clinical side of me took over, and nodded. She handed me a small plastic jar, two inches or so in diameter, in which a thumb-sized clump of white feathery material rested beside a grape-sized translucent bag, bulging with fluid, whitish flecks floating inside. I turned it round and round, looking up through the bottom, hoping I could sense a soul. My gaze lingered a minute more, then I handed it back to her, asking, “What happens next?” I asked.

With a half smile, she answered, “Well, in the old days – meaning when I was an intern – we would have done a D&C, scrap off the inside of your uterus, make sure everything is out and the bleeding’s stopped. But now, as long as you’re not bleeding any more – and I don’t think you will – we’ll just watch you here in the ER, and you can go home in a few hours.”

I wondered, Why don’t I feel sadder? Out loud, I said, “Thanks. Thank you.” Business-like, I added, “Can I get dressed now?”

“Of course. The nurse will get you a pad. I’ll come back in a few minutes, OK?” I nodded, trying not to look as she took the jar from my hand, and carried it out with her.

On her return, she sat down heavily on the round, backless stool, and swiveled to look straight at me. “How are you feeling?”

Firmly, I said, “No cramps, all gone. Thanks.” Almost impishly, I continued, “I guess now, I’ll have all my energy available for my orals. So that’s a good thing?”

“Sarah, I sense you’re like me, you’ve always been on top of everything in your life, your direction…but there are some things we can’t, we shouldn’t control.” She paused, “Maybe, given you’re a psychologist, a scientist, I shouldn’t tell you this, but, listen: Deep inside your heart and mind, I know, you’ve lost someone very close and dear to you. You know, better than most, I suspect, that grieving is healthy, something you have to do. Don’t let the name ‘blighted’, or the size fool you. This pregnancy, this baby was – is – very real to you, someone you’ll never get back, who you’ll always carry there inside. When it comes – and it will come – when the sadness comes knocking, please, please let it in.”

********

!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!

The morning after dinner with Julia, I called the Ob clinic at Harvard Community Health Plan, intending to ask for a pregnancy test and initial appointment.

“When was you last period?” asked an impersonal voice on the other end.

I double-checked my date book, although I had it memorized already – January 17th, ten days before Howard had invaded my apartment and violated my tranquility. “The 17th. January,” I heard myself say in hollow tones.

“You were regular? Hadn’t missed any?”

I thought, this might be what the orals were going to be like? “Mum-hum,” I agreed.

“Any bleeding, spotting, cramps?”

“No.”

“Morning sickness, breast tenderness?”

“A little, I guess.”

“OK, we can set you up for an appointment on March 15th, Thursday. With the nurse. She’ll do a history, send off some labs, a pregnancy test and the other pre-natals.”

A flicker of dread flashed through me – the Ides of March. I shook my head almost imperceptibly, and asked, “Can I get one before that, a pregnancy test? Today, tomorrow?”

“We can do that, honey, but it won’t be ready for a couple of days, Probably not till after the weekend. And besides, this early, it might not be positive yet, even if you are. No need to come in, unless…”

“No, nothing’s wrong, I just thought…isn’t there a blood test, or something?”

“Yes, but the doctors, they say we’re not supposed to offer it unless a women’s bleeding, or high risk. Any medical problems, like diabetes? How old are you, again?”

“I’m …I’ll be 30 in May. No, I don’t have any problems like that.”

“Why don’t you just wait until you come in. It’s not like you’re going to do anything different before then, are you?”

I didn’t have the strength, after days at the clinic, evenings in the library, and nights of fitful sleep, to say anything other than, “OK, Thursday, March 15. Got it.”

At our first meeting in March, Julia and I started preparing for my upcoming orals.

“I’ll be the First Reader, of course, and the department chief will be the committee chair. Don’t worry about him, he’s just there to make sure the rest of us treat you fairly.” Dr. Klein smiled. “Fairly – that means we ask you tough questions, but don’t try to score points off of you. We’re not there to show how smart we are, but to make sure you understand your own work. When you do get the doctorate, no one should doubt your ability to review someone else’s study. Our reputations are on the line here, as much as yours. We’re not going to play ‘Gotcha’, Sarah. Stay poised, be yourself, and everything will go smoothly.”

I spent the next two weeks re-reading all of my sources, along with those evenings in the library scouring the psychologic and medical guides to periodical literature, looking for anything new which had come out that might be even tangentially related to adolescent mothers and their newborns. Totally immersed, I was able to forget for hours, even days, at a time, that my body was changing. Sometimes, when I woke up, the thought of coffee didn’t sit well, and my breasts did seem a little loggy, but most of the time, I could ignore whatever might be happening in my uterus.

At my pre-natal appointment, the nurse led me to the scale, and announced, “58 kilograms, 162 centimeters.” What is that in real money, I wondered. I’d never paid much attention to my weight, so I had no clue if I had gained any or not.

She started the interview with that horrid question, “When was your last period?” I knew after all my time in Ob clinics, following my research subjects, why that was so important, but I still wished I didn’t have to remember. We went briskly through my medical history, finishing with, “Do you have any questions, Sarah?”

I hesitated. That morning, I’d notice the faintest pink swirl in the toilet. “I’ve heard sometimes you can spot at 2, or 3 months?”

“Why, did you…?”

I nodded my head, and she went on. “We could have you examined, take a look, get the pap smear and culture out of the way. Maybe it would reassure you?”

“Um…I don’t know – a doctor does the exam?”

“Oh, you’ll like her, she’s one of our senior residents, really gentle, knows her stuff.”

A female gynecologist, Dr. Stephanie Seacrist, walked in, stethoscope slung casually over the shoulders of her starched white coat. With her no-nonsense blond hair pulled back tightly into a bun, and large-framed glasses enhancing her smiling eyes, I immediately relaxed.

Explaining everything I should expect, before she did it, she quickly finished the exam by feeling for my uterus and ovaries with her left hand, while pushing up from inside with two fingers of her right. Then, she took my hand, guided it down to my pubic bone, and said, “Here, feel that? Your uterus?” I nodded as she withdrew her hand, looking briefly at her fingers as she turned the glove inside out.

After she helped me sit up, she asked “Is it OK to talk now, or do you want to get dressed first?”

“Go ahead, it’s OK.”

“I do see a spot or two of blood in there, but there are no lesions, and your cervix is long and closed. So it’s probably nothing, just what sometimes happens – the placenta gets planted into new parts of the endometrium, that lining can shed a tiny bit.” She dropped her smile as she looked straight at me. “Your uterus seems a little small, for your dates, though. Maybe seven weeks-size instead of eight?”

“What’s that mean?”

“Oh, probably nothing, we never really know for sure when conception happens…”

“Even if you know the date when…”

“Yes, you see, sperm can linger in the uterus, even in the tubes, and we don’t know when ovulation happened, how long it takes for the egg to travel down.”

I looked away, frowning, and started to say, “I…”

She quickly went on. “We’ve got a new test now, called ultrasound. It’s not x-rays, no radiation, uses sound waves. At this stage, we should be able to see a baby in there, if it’s at least 7 weeks along. We call it ‘real-time’, because the computer turns the reflected sound waves into a black and white moving image of what’s inside. Maybe we could even see the heartbeat. Sound good?”

I nodded, getting more and more anxious. “When?”

“This is not really an emergency, so next Monday is probably the earliest we can squeeze you in. You don’t have to worry about coverage you know, it’s all part of the per capita we get from BU.”

I dropped my head, hoping my hair would hide the wetness welling in my eyes.

“Sarah, is everything OK?” Real concern flowed through Dr. Seacrist’s quiet question. “I saw the notes, from the nurse, the baby’s father’s not involved?”

I shook my head, felt the tears now flowing past my nose. I sniffed, saying nothing.

She took my hand. “You don’t have to go through this alone, you know.” She reached into her lab coat pocket and handed me a card after scribbling on it. “Here. You can call me, anytime. That’s my home number. We’re going to get through this, you and me.” Then, in a more business-like tone, she said, “My team’s on call this weekend. If anything – anything at all – happens, call the L&D number on there, ask for me, we’ll make sure everything is OK. All right?” 

Biting the inside of my lower lip, I nodded. I wanted to say, thank you, but couldn’t get it past the lump in my throat. She patted my hand once, twice, then said, “Well, I’ll let you get dressed now. Remember, anything. Anytime.”

********

!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!

Sunday, I alternated between anger and depression, fuming first at Howard, then myself. I feared calling anyone, afraid of their reaction, or maybe my own, the imagined words of my sister echoing in my thoughts all day. Finally, after dinner, I called Lauren, and spilled the story.

“I’m so sorry, Sarah, that happened to you. You’re right, it’s not fair. Not fair, to you, not fair to us to women. What are you thinking? What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. I can’t think straight, I just want to smash his face. Or maybe my own, I don’t know.” I started crying. “Besides,” I said through sniffles, “What can I do? Just wait, I guess, see what happens…”

“I’ve heard if you take two birth control pills, the old kind, the strong ones, now, and then again in the morning, that sometimes works.”

The thought went through my chest like an electric shock. “What do you mean, like an early abortion?” I shivered, thinking of facing another man, a doctor, to explain and ask for a prescription. “I couldn’t do that, not now.”

“Why not?”, she pressed.

“Seeing a doctor, I can’t handle that right now…”

Lauren suggested calmly, “Wait a minute. Didn’t you tell me about Esther, that  grad student who did a circle thing with you and your friends, the mirror thing? You said she helped out at the Women’s Health Collective, right?”

Lauren’s thought pulled me away from my enraged emotions, re-triggering the analytic part of me. “Yes. Yes. The ones who did that book, Our Bodies… “

“Right, her. Think she might know what to do?”

After I hung up, I dug out my copy of that thick paperback, found their phone number, and called first thing in the morning.

“Yes, there is a good chance doing that would prevent implantation. Not 100%, but better than 50-50.” Esther explained after I’d re-introduced myself and we caught up a bit. “It is a prescription, unless you know someone who would share a pill pack with you.” She paused, and I heard distant voices in the background. “Oh, somebody just reminded me. They’re starting to try an IUD to see if that works. Putting in a Copper-T, that’s supposed to prevent implantation, which doesn’t happen right away, you know. But you’d have to be sure, you don’t want to make a bad situation worse. And they don’t know for sure about any side effects on the baby if it doesn’t work. Nobody’s been willing to really study it yet.”

Her hesitance convinced me. Deep inside, I became aware this just wasn’t right. “I don’t have to decide now, about anything. Who knows, the odds are I’m not even pregnant, right? And I can always do something later, can’t I?”

All of February, the deadline for my thesis submission overpowered the fear and anger I’d felt that first weekend. By the end of the month, I had finished it to Julia’s satisfaction. We sent it off the the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry for peer review, and scheduled my oral defense with the committee for mid-April. Once that was done, she took me out to celebrate.

“Have you decided on what you’ll be doing, once you graduate?” she asked.

I glanced down at my salad, covered with thin strips of salmon, and felt a little queasy as I replied, “I’ve put in for a fellowship at Beth Israel, with the medical school…”

“Back to Harvard, eh?” she commented with a twinkle.

I nodded. “The Department of Psychiatry is starting up a program in consultation liaison. They need a research director.”

“Interesting. What’s that entail?”

‘I’m not sure yet. I’ll be meeting with Dr, Silverman…”

“The medical education director? Wow, must be a big deal.” she enthused

“I guess so,” I said with a sigh. “It’s something, to keep me busy. I hope I’ll like it. I can’t really start practice until after I pass my boards.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, you’ll do fine, Sarah.”

I said nothing, still wondering why I didn’t feel like eating.

Dr. Klein noticed my discomfort. “What’s up? You don’t seem very excited about being done, with the thesis and all, and finally stepping out into the real world.”

All those years, those meetings with her, her guidance, support and honesty, helped me to confess, “I’m late. Julia. I think I’m…”

She put her fork down, reached across the table and gently took my hand in both of hers. “What is it, what happened?”

I managed to get through the whole story without crying. “I’m numb to it now, that night with Howard. Now, I’m wondering about the future, my future.”

“Have you been talking with your analyst about it?”

“I’ve only seen him twice since then, it’s been all about what happened, not what I’m going to do. Besides, I don’t know if I want to talk that over with a man. Can they really understand, even if he’s supposed to have professional distance. It’s not just about feelings. It’s about…my life.”

“Your life?”

“You know the phrase, ‘biological clock’? I’m thinking it’s not only time ticking away,  whether a woman can get pregnant. It’s also about when in her life a women can be pregnant, can have a baby. Raise it, love it, give her, or him, all the attention they deserve. If I have it now, what will it do to my work, I don’t even have the assurance of a stable job, to say nothing of a man, a husband to help me out.”

She nodded a bit ruefully.

“You don’t have to keep it, you know.”

I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. Even though I hadn’t been thinking about this, I instantly knew the answer. It started pouring out. “Intellectually – and politically – I believe in it. ‘My body, my self.’ But the last six years, I’ve watched mothers and their newborns, bonding, loving, so many times. All those girls I saw, the teen-agers, they mostly seemed so happy, so ready to be a mother. And yet, they had so little – still in school, most of them, no job, no money, even those with a boyfriend, he didn’t live with them. I’ve got so much more, my degree, my experience if only because I’m nearly twice as old as they are. And then there’s…love is the only thing I can call it. I don’t even know for sure I’m pregnant, but already I love my baby, I never want anything to harm her. I’d do anything for her.”

“Anything? Raise it alone, juggle your time at work, give her to someone else eight hours every day?”

“All I know is, I have to make it work. It’s the only way I can be me. It’s what I’m supposed to do.”

!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!

“Sarah?”

Howard’s familiar baritone came through clear, static-free, as if he were calling from the room next door.

“Howard? Where are you?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but after all our time together, politeness came naturally. “I haven’t heard from you in…years. How are you?”

“Actually, I’m here, in Boston. Somerville. Thought I’d take a holiday for a bit, see the old school, friends, you know?”

“So, I’m on your list? After the way we left it?”

He chuckled. “You’re the first, Sarah Jane.” He left that dangling, as if afraid to go on.

“Well, I suppose I should appreciate that, should see you.” My life was full, this January, a frenzied struggle to polish my dissertation for submission to my thesis committee and a journal. On this snowy Saturday, I decided I deserved a distraction. I gave him my address, asking him to wait two hours while I finished up my work.

By the time he showed up, I already had on my puffy coat, muffler and gloves in hand, ready to whisk him out the door to dinner. I didn’t want him in my apartment, afraid of how that might feel. “It’s such a mess in there, I wasn’t expecting anyone…”

By the end of dinner, he’d caught me up on his last year or two. He was engaged, to a Palestinian girl in the process of converting to Judaism. He was managing the finances of his kibbutz, which had become a powerhouse in the growing Israeli wine industry.

“We’re specializing in that new grape, Shiraz,” he said. “A real money-maker over here, for some reason. American Jews are enthralled with buying anything we make. Gives them a feeling they’re helping to defend the homeland, maybe?”

“I hope it’s better than that sweet stuff my parents always had,” I said with a smile.

“How is your family, anyway?”

“Mom’s still the same as always. You’d think she had a son who was a doctor, the way she talked about me the last time she was here. When she found out I have to take a board exam to start practice next summer, the first thing she asked was, ‘What’s the highest score you can get, Janie?’ But my dad – he seems to be slowing down. He’s put on a little weight, won’t stop eating all those steaks, despite what his doctor says. Even wheezes now when he goes upstairs. They had to move to a one-story place for him.”

The evening went on like that, catching-up, superficial pleasantries, a quick return to the easy camaraderie we’d always had. By the time we got back to my place, I felt safe enough to invite him in. He reached into the back seat for a box, embossed with the logo of his winery, clusters of gapes on a background of rolling fields, Sea of Galilee in the distance.

“I know you don’t really care for wine, but please, just for me, try this? It might change your mind.”

Inside, I found two dusty goblets, rinsed them off, and set them on the kitchen table. “Here. For old times’ sake?”

He lifted two bottle from the box of four, saying, “You’ll like this. I’ll leave the rest, you can give it as a present if you don’t want any more.”

Howard went overboard that evening, soaking up one bottle and half the other, while I found myself surprisingly sleepy after just two glasses. At first voluble, full of himself, by the time he was half way through that second bottle his eyes drooped, his words slurred, and he kept blinking at me, saying, “Sarah…we had…you, me…such good time together. We should have…you.”

I couldn’t let him drive home like this, I knew. I gathered up the glasses, rinsed them out, then found a clean sheet and spare pillow, draping them over the living room couch.

“Howard.” It sounded like he was snoring. “Lehrman!” I shouted. He started, weakly lifting his head and staring up, eyes at half-mast.

“Umpf?” was all he could muster.

“Come on, get up, over to the couch. You can leave in the morning.”

Acting as his rudder, I managed his shuffling walk to the sofa, where he plopped akimbo, one leg still dangling to the floor. I slipped off his shoes, not bothering to move his leg. I didn’t really want to touch him any more.

That night, I had one of those flying dreams, where I start jumping up, and up, feeling almost weightless, bounding with high arcs that seem to last forever. Each time I rose further, until the wind started to buffet me, stronger and stronger. Now falling, my legs and arms splayed out, uncontrolled, until…

I awoke, finding Howard on top of me in mid-climax. Screeching, I pushed him away, howling, “What the hell are you doing! Get out of here! Get the fuck out of here!”

“I’m sorry, sorry…” he mumbled.

“Sorry’s not the word for it – you’re pathetic! Don’t ever, don’t ever come back, or call me, never, you hear.” I scrambled up, raced into the living room, grabbed his shoes and coat, throwing them out into the hall. He stumbled after them, and I slammed the door behind him, bolting it twice and throwing the chain for good measure.

Shaking, I raced to the bathroom, washing, scrubbing, pulling out the Massengill pack, squeezing it over and over inside. My breathing came in spasmodic bursts, which led into sobs, Shaking, I covered the toilet with a towel and sat down, trying to think. “What just happened?” was all that came through my mind. I closed my eyes, and tried to remember, had I done anything, said anything, that led him to believe…? I felt embarrassed, ashamed, like it was my fault. 

“That’s not fair! It’s not fair!” I shouted. Not fair, that whatever power I had built, all my self-esteem, could be ravaged, tarnished in an instant. By someone I had trusted.

I imagined calling my sister, telling her. I heard her say, “Well, your ex-boyfriend, you let him in, two bottles of wine, what did you think was going to happen?” 

********

!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!

Janie – Sept. 28, 1978

I really did get the letter you wrote last May, but I’ve been on an extended vacation since Christmas, which is about to end this weekend…After residency, I worked in LA for Kaiser from July thru the end of the year. April and I stayed in Venice at the beach all summer, dodging roller skates, impersonating burned-out hippies, and enjoying our last months of LA madness. Venice is a unique place – every single type of person in the world is represented there, mingling down where the cosmos meets the sand – Ocean Front Boardwalk. Heterogeneity rules in Venice, the melting pot by the sea. A great contrast to where I am now.

April left LA about a year ago to study midwifery at the U. of Utah in Salt Lake City for 2 years. I moved into as rent-free shack, comforted only by a water bed and stereo, in the backyard of a close friend’s house in Manhattan Beach. It’s really senseless to try & live in LA unless you’re by the ocean. All summer, I went to work, saved my money, & rode my bike every morning on the beach-side path, in preparation for my grand, open-ended vacation starting Dec. 31st.

We bought an 80-year old house in the oldest part of SLC, on a hill overlooking the 20 x 10 mile plain housing most of Salt Lake, ringed by mountains, crowned by the Wasatch rising 7,000’ on the eastern edge. It’s an awesome sight, and I see it all from my front porch. Convenient as it is to the city, I came to ski every day. Little Cottonwood Canyon, home to Alta and Snowbird, is like Boston to a marathoner, Broadway to a theatre-lover, Hawaii to a surfer, the Himalayas to a mountain climber. [Here he goes on an extended rhapsody about winter, powder snow, and skiing. A small sample follows]

…Skiing is like an Apache dance with gravity. I have to implicitly trust my body, that it knows much better how to ski than my conscious mind does. After all, it’s the nerves and muscles that do all the work; why not let them run the show, rather than some ephemeral evolutionary anomaly like consciousness, created by an overactive and at times unnecessary cerebral cortex? My most enjoyable moments skiing seem to come why my mind is just part of the audience.

The audience! Yes, that was my trepidation on this day at the summit of Alta. I knew, although I couldn’t see them yet, that once over the lip into the chute, I would be the single object of attention for all those coming off the Germania and Sugarloaf lifts. People standing around, idly wondering which run to take, casually adjusting buckles, gloves, and goggles, would look up and be forced to follow my every move. As my predecessor finished his run, invisible below me, I actually heard applause and whistles. In a way, I hoped it wasn’t for him, for that would mean people were warming up to the show, and I was the next one down.

At these times in skiing, it is important to clear one’s mind, to say one’s mantra, whatever it is. Some ski freaks will shout at this point, screeching like a psychedelic cowboy or crazed Swiss yodeler. I prefer to simply repeat the obvious truth that, at this point, there is only one way to go, and that is DOWN.

Storming into the head of the chute, my mind empty at last, I fight a few turns through the spray left by the previous three skiers, and then lock onto a virgin track right in the middle, heading straight down. I am dimly aware the, yes, I actually can ski this stuff, and then the exhilaration starts to build as I focus on the incredible feel of the snow beneath, no, around my feet. Not dry and fluffy Utah powder, but fresh and buoyant nonetheless; my Haute Routes sink in ankle deep, the tips riding free on the surface. Knees locked, feet together, arms pumping, hips rising and falling, I imagine that I am skiing through something incredibly dense and yet quite fluid, like mercury. My body working perfectly, my mind is totally free to feel the luscious endless depth beneath me. I am totally alone, the entire mountain deserted, completely mine.

Too soon, too soon, the Sugarloaf-to-Germania traverse appears below, signaling the end of my run. Usually, I don’t feel a burning need to look at my tracks, but in this case I know I have to. Leaning forward on my poles, I look back up. To me, the line seems perfect, completely symmetrical. If you’re gonna put on a show, I say to myself, you might as well do it right. I rest a minute, trying to freeze the feel of the snow and the sight of my tracks into my memory forever. A transcendent moment, putting me utterly at peace…

In May, I went job-hunting – Denver, Seattle, the Bay Area. The outcome: this Monday I will start working in Tacoma. I’m going to spend the next nine months there while April finishes her school here. I’ll probably be able to spend 4 to 10 days a month in Salt Lake, so we should be able to keep things going. We have to, cause we got married August 25th, outside, at the end of Little Cottonwood Canyon, past Alta.

I know, it might seem a little weird, a midwife and obstetrician getting married. Both professions derive from the same sources, and of course serve the same ends, but their means and attitudes are quite divergent. Those differences, however, are subordinated in our family to a more over-riding concern. At least half the time, one or the other of us may be called out at any moment to attend a birth.

It’s not the commonness of birth which characterizes us, it is the acceptance of disruption. A large part of our work is fundamentally unscheduled. Most unscheduled events are frowned upon: tornados, auto accidents, wars. We seem to schedules our celebrations: birthdays, graduation, marriage, Christmas, the 4th of July. But birth remains unscheduled, yet inherently joyful. We relish this ceaseless disruption of our lives…

Mike

********

!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!

“Have you polished up those hypotheses for us?” Dr. Klein asked. “We’ve got to start selecting the girls for subjects soon.”

Julia had been pushing me for the better part of a year to finish up the background reading and research I needed for my thesis. Books like On Adolescence: A psychoanalytic Interpretation, Tomorrow’s Tomorrow: The Black Woman, Maternal Emotions, and Unmarried Mothers. Articles with titles like “The real world of the teen-age Negro mother”, “The ego in adolescence”, and “The second individuation process of adolescence”. Correspondence with other doctoral students who  were doing similar research, such as “The Human Newborn and His Mother”, “Infant Rearing Myths of Adolescent Mothers”. My cubby-hole office in the psych library at B.U. was beginning to overflow like a proper academic’s, papers piled on every horizontal surface, books, filled with torn slips marking key pages, stacked haphazardly askew, and steno pads filled with thoughts, asides, plans for organization. We had met twice a month for several years, and I finally had a vision for what I wanted to study, and what form it would take.

I recited from memory the five questions I hoped to answer. “First, ‘Adolescents who are more separate from their families adjust more easily to motherhood’. Second, ‘Those with firmer feminine identities adjust more easily to motherhood’. ‘Stronger relationships with babies’ fathers and peers correlates with easier adjustment to motherhood.’ Then there’s the Freudian one we’re slipping in, ‘Those with greater ego strength adapt to motherhood better’. And, finally, “Infants whose behavior is less worrisome will have more satisfactory interactions with the mothers’.” I breathed deeply, proud that I had honed my inchoate feelings about a teen-age mother’s relationship to her infant into five hypotheses amenable to study and analysis.

“That fourth one, Sarah, how do you define ‘ego strength’?”

“That’s by accommodation to pregnancy.”

“Meaning?”

“We’ll use the Newborn Projective test that Heidi designed a few years ago in Barry’s lab at the CDU.”

Julia nodded. “All right, sounds like you’re ready to start recruiting at the teen clinics over at Women’s and Beth Israel!”

Every week from June through September, I spent an hour at each hospital, interviewing one young mother about 28 weeks into her first pregnancy. By the time I met with my 30th subject, I had the questions memorized. I was able to look into Doreen’s tired eyes, and smile warmly as she rubbed the top of her belly.

“Hello, Doreen. I’m Sarah Stein. I’m doing research on teen-age mothers, trying to find out how they feel about and take care of their babies. Thanks for agreeing to help me with our study. Did they explain a little bit about what we’re going to do?”

“Yeah, you wanna know about me and my baby, how we get along after she’s born?”

“Right. I’m going to ask you some questions. If you feel uncomfortable at any time, you don’t want to answer, or don’t want to continue, just let me know. We’re not going to do anything except talk. Then after the baby’s born, I’ll do a little exam in the hospital before you leave, then meet you again six weeks later. OK?”

She nodded impersonally. “Awright. Let’s go.”

Doreen was Black, nearly 17, living with her mother who worked as a nurse’s aide at Brigham and Women’s. She’d known the baby’s father since the start of her sophomore year. He didn’t come to the clinic visit, but she said they were ‘still together’, and he planned to ‘stay around’ after the baby was born, even though they both thought she was too young to get married. Her friends thought the pregnancy was ‘cool’, and a couple of them had babies of their own.

I gave her ten pictures to look at, babies smiling, sleeping, scowling, crying, and asked for her reaction to each. Then, we talked about three more pictures. The first showed a woman holding a book, in front of a farm where a man and woman accompanied a horse plowing the field. The second showed a woman looking through a door she’s just opened into a room, where flowers sat on a small table. The last featured a woman reading to a girl holding a doll in her lap. I asked Doreen to tell a story about what led up to the picture, what was happening in it, what the people are feeling and thinking, and how the story ends. Julia and I had designed this part of the interview to give us some idea about my second hypothesis, the effect of a teen-ager’s sense of feminine identity on her interactions with her newborn. Early on in the process, I began to regret that these pictures were wildly inappropriate for my study subjects, all the characters being white, and located in environments foreign to these inner city girls. But Julia wouldn’t let me change after we’d started.

Once I’d finished with Doreen, I went to the hospital for a postpartum interview with another new mom, followed by my favorite part of the study, examining the baby. I floated back to my day’s in Barry’s lab, and all those infants I’d played with under the guise of gathering data for our reciprocity study.

Julia, who accompanied me on several of these visits, observed one day, “Now I see why you wanted to do this study.” She winked both eyes, then said, “I guess it’s OK to like them – the babies, I mean. You don’t want to influence your subject moms with your emotions, but the babies – go ahead, enjoy them.”

Two days after her delivery, I found Doreen’s room. She looked up from the wrinkled little baby cradled in her arms, saying dreamily, “Oh, hi, Missus…uh?”

“Stein – I’m Sarah, remember me?”

“Yeah, you’re the lady who showed me those funny pictures.”

I smiled, looking down at the tiny bundle in her arms. A thin pink cotton cap partly covered curly black hair. “She is … lovely, Doreen. Does she have a name yet?”

“Shalice, that’s what I call her,” she said without looking up.

“I think she’ll love that.” I wondered, “Is it after someone?”

Doreen looked up, beaming. “No. I made it up all myself. It means ‘Precious’ ‘cause that’s what she is. So precious.” Shalice cooed at her mother’s voice.

“Can I touch her?”

“Here, you can hold her, Miss,” Doreen said, handing me the swaddled infant.

My chest tightened as I carefully wrapped both arms around her tiny body. I used the opportunity to start the newborn exam, testing her Moro reflex. “OK if I do a little check on her here?” I asked as I laid her gently, slowly down into the rolling bassinet. I felt the room go distant as I carefully unwrapped the blanket, covered with ducklings endlessly following their mother. I marveled at her sudden startle when the cool air hit her skin. Only Shalice and I were left, her so helpless and I in awe at her miniature fingernails, her long thick lashes, her squinting dark brown eyes. As I’d felt so many times before, being in the presence of a baby, still curled from her journey in the womb, I wondered if this was what a mother does, forget everything else except her own, her precious child.

Wrapping her up after I’d finished, I discovered Doreen had slipped into the bathroom. This meant I could hold Shalice a few minutes more. I thought, this, this makes all those books, all those papers, all those crumpled outlines, all that planning, everything I’d done to get ready – this is what I really wanted.

“She’s pretty, ain’t she, Miss?” Doreen asked as she eased herself back into bed, careful not to sit down too hard.

“She is…she is. So pretty,” I said quietly.

“Pardon?” Doreen said.

“Sorry. Here. Such a lovely, lovely baby. You are so lucky. Don’t forget, I’ll be coming to see you two, again, at home next month.”

********

!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!

By the end of my first clinical year at Beth Israel, I felt I’d mastered the basics of therapy. I no longer dreaded meeting a client for the first time, armed as I was with the tools Dr. Theobald had given me. Whatever self-doubts lay within, on the surface I projected confidence, assurance, and unforced interest. As with every academic challenge I’d faced, I read voluminously, took endless notes in my tiny handwriting, and followed the rules I learned  without deviation. I fell asleep thinking of how to direct someone else’s thinking and emotions simply by the questions I asked.

“Sarah, you may be the quickest, brightest doctoral student I’ve supervised.” Dr. Theobald paused, smiling. He went on, “You display all the outward signs of caring and concern, the body language, facial expressions, the words…”

I tensed up, knowing he’d found my biggest fear, that it was all a fraud, done by rote. I stammered, “It’s…it’s…so much to remember…I know, I know, it feels like I’m following some rules, not the client’s stories.”

“That’s interesting to hear. What I see, or, more precisely, don’t see, is a spark of real connection. You might as well be exchanging letters with your client, inserting emotional adverbs every now and then to indicate your feelings.”

I sighed. “I do feel, I feel I want to help them.”

“Hmm…” he said. “You’ve spent the last three years in research labs, studying isolated behavior, narrowing your focus to specific experimental questions. Have you thought about that, research, as your career?”

His words stung me like an electrical shock.

“Look. You’re almost always the smartest, quickest person in any room. But your clients aren’t coming to you for your intelligence; they expect that of you, that’s not what will impress them about you, make you special for them. For them, you’re not a scientist, a researcher. You are first and foremost another person, who shares the trauma and the drama of simply being human. Without that connection, all your knowledge can’t begin to help them.”

I realised at that moment it was helping people, directly, face-to-face, that had drawn me to psychology. I’d always known that, but never seen it defined so starkly before. “I’ve never thought of myself as a dispassionate researcher. I’m always getting emotionally involved with our subjects,” I said.

“You have to make your clients believe that, your deep and complete sincerity, even if it seems artificial to you.”

I frowned and shook my head. “I don’t know what more I can do.”

He looked towards the ceiling, resting his left elbow on the arm of his chair, chin cradled in his hand, index fingers pressed to pursed lips. Finally, he offered, “What I do, is slow things down. Usually, I know what I want to say, to ask, right away. But when I sense the client has broached an emotional whirlpool, I force myself to pause, and name what I’m sensing to myself. Let her know, by that brief silence, that I’m affected by what she said.”

I nodded. I felt my lower lip quiver, in fear and self-recognition.

“Sarah, you have never failed in anything you’ve put your mind to. You already have that capacity for connection within you, it’s been bred by every friendship, every one you’ve ever loved. Start there, use those familiar emotional touchstones to be your home base, and you won’t fail here.”

A few weeks later, I met with Dr. Klein, ostensibly to review my initial dissertation proposal. I had something else on my mind.

“Julia, how did you know you wanted to work with kids?”

“It came naturally,” she said. “Never really thought about it, I guess. Why, are you having second thoughts about your topic?”

“No, no, it’s not that. It’s…I’ve been thinking, about whether I should go into children’s therapy.”

“You’ve always said how much you love kids, how they filled your heart.”

“Right, my heart, not my head,” I countered. Her raised eyebrows drove me on. “I think…I think I love kids, little kids, even teen-agers, too much to see them when they’re hurting. I don’t know if I could be a child’s therapist. The emotion, dealing with their problems, the damage that can be done, I can’t think clearly with them, about them.”

“Are you saying your want to change your thesis topic, the one we’ve been talking about?”

“No, I want to press on with that, looking at teen-age moms and how they interact with their newborns, their infants. I can handle that, as long as it’s cloaked in research, and I’m not expected to solve their problems. I always want to have kids around me, I know that. But – and maybe this is selfish – I want them to be healthy, I don’t want to be responsible for fixing the world for them. Just be with them, feel their laughter, their promise.”

“That’s good, Sarah, I’m glad to hear that.”

“You think it’s the right decision, for me to be an adult therapist, I mean?” I asked

“It doesn’t matter what I think. What’s important is that you think it’s the right decision. You’re the only one who can, who should, say what’s right for you.”

********

!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!

January, 1976

Bruce Springsteen Plays Santa Barbara

“Geez, do I have the tickets!?” Somewhere past Malibu, I realised I’d left the tickets back in our sun room, keeping company with the philodendrons and African violets.

“It’s a good thing you remembered now – it’s a long way back to LA from Robertson Gymnasium”, April reminded me. Her new found wonder at the Springsteen phenomenon had propelled me into Wherehouse records to by the tickets for the only Southern California show he’d play on his 1975 tour. The night before, he’d been at the Roxy, a hip club down the Strip from the Whiskey-a-Go-Go, singing to invited industry heavies, trying to build on the nationwide buzz generated by the twin Newsweek and Time cover stories on “the future of rock and roll”.

We’d bought the “Born to Run” album on the strength of a Rolling Stone rave and one listen to the title cut. Eleven years earlier, I’d heard “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, full of florid cymbals, driving harmonies, and chugging guitars beats. It was so new and different, fuller and more vibrant than anything else on the radio. I felt right though my solar plexus exactly why young girls were screaming and fainting all over northern Europe about these guys. Their bushy-haired head wiggles the next week on Ed Sullivan, full of smiles and knowing humor, just confirmed the archetypal definition they provided for our generation. “Born to Run” had the same effect on me – and apparently on April as well. She went out the next day and bought his two earlier records, “Asbury Park”, and “E Street Shuffle”.

“Roy Orbison … ‘Only the Lonely’. That song was just everything to me. The beach, the music … I don’t know; ‘Thunder Road’ just did something for me.” She was quite inarticulate trying to justify her extravagance.

We listened to Bruce constantly over the next few weeks, lying on the floor in front of the tinny stereo I’d brought from college. No way it could pick up all the power of the bass, or the fullness of the sax, or even help decipher his muddy singing. But the emotional surge and fullness had the same message for me as the Beatles – this guy was singing to me. And I liked what he had to say. Clearly a poet, he sketched a few quick images into an iconic picture of cars and angst and hope for the future, a potent mix for one still mired in the artificial adolescence of medical training.

We devoured the cover where Bruce leaned, smiling, emoting with great joy, Fender guitar slung over his back, leather jacket hung open, ear ring shining above his dark beard, leaning on the giant sax player, openly loving his life.

In the six weeks between the newsmagazine covers and the concert in Santa Barbara, he went from “the next Dylan” to the current big thing – this year’s boy for the rock and roll cognoscenti in Tinsel Town. And we had tickets to his only show for 400 miles. At the Robertson Gym, no less.

“It’s really a little place”, April told me. She’d gone to school at UC Santa Barbara, whose basketball and intramural teams played in Robertson. “It’s more like a high school gym, you know.” No, I didn’t know, but I’d soon find out.

We left Venice three hours ahead of the start time for the show, knowing we might have trouble parking, so going back to get the tickets didn’t faze me too much; we’d still get there before he started. But I had to rev the Dodge Charger 402 cc up to full bore to slam into the parking lot by 8 PM.

We raced up to the door, and entered the foyer. I could feel the energy, the zoom emanating from that room. The place was packed. Folding chairs filled the basketball court, stretching to the walls along the sidelines. Above the court, a horseshoe balcony provided about five rows of slats from which to look down on the stage, set under the far basket. This room was about 100 feet by 60 feet, and jam full of buzzing 20-something’s, all new to this East Coast myth, talking about his “epic three hour shows”. Bruce never had an opening act. He wanted all your energy for his music.

We hiked upstairs, looking for an empty seat, but found nothing. Wedged under the railing along the balcony’s edge, people dangled their into thin air, being pushed from those in the front row behind them. Squatters occupied every aisle, a fire marshal’s nightmare.

Back downstairs, we caucused about what to do. Right in front of us, the sound guys sat by a control board, looking like high tech organists about to program Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The equipment and their three chairs rested on a pair of wooden pallets, raised about a foot off the hardwood floor. I asked the nearest sound guy, “Can we sit here on the edge of this?”

“Hey, it’s OK, but don’t get in our way – we gotta get the sound the way the Boss wants it.” A big grin told me just who the Boss was. He got nudged by his buddy. They both looked up at the stage, where a scruffy emcee waddled out, watched the lights dim a bit, leaned down to the mike, and announced, “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN — BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE E STREET BAND!!!”

The lights thunked off, a lone figure walked out facing the rear of the stage, while a white spot slammed onto his varnished classic Fender slung over that shiny leather jacket. Hunched over a mike, harmonica up to his mouth, he started to blow the intro to “Thunder Road”. The crowd went nuts. The sound guys pulled their toggles all the way up to ten. The crowd noise hushed into a cobra-tensed energy pushing Bruce through the first eight bars of his harmonica solo. April and I had found our song.

By the time Roy Bittan started trilling his piano, everyone was jumping up on their chairs. When Danny Federici hit the organ, we all clapped our hands or stamped our feet. And when Clarence Clemons brought in his alto sax, we screamed, applauded, and generally went berserk. Those of us who could, whistled.

I myself have a very intense, literally ear-splitting whistle. You do not want to sit next to me at a basketball game. I learned the whistle from Peter Horton, who lived behind us when I was reaching puberty. Two years older than me, he was the coolest kid in the world. One of those natural athletes who make the rest of us feel foolish, he had sandy hair, a killer smile, and a knack for making everything look easy. My sister was in love with him; I merely worshipped him. He accepted it all as his due, or maybe he didn’t even notice it. He showed me how to make a loop out of my thumb and forefinger, press their tips against my curled up tongue, purse my lips, and blow like crazy. Moving the tongue back and forth produces pitch alterations sufficient to drive away the meanest junkyard hound.

I perfected my whistle while coaching little kids on a swim team, the summers between my years at college. It was the only thing they could hear while churning underwater. In the summer of ’69, at the apogee of the age of Aquarius, I had charge of the eight and unders. The girls were simply awesome. Each one was a little package of dynamite. We had a magical summer, that year. While the Mets marched to the World Series, the hippies marched on Yasgar’s Farm at Woodstock, the Beatles peppered us with Abbey Road, and Richard Nixon began his own long dark march to ultimate paranoid ignominy, my little girls swept over every team which came against us.

Two moments stand out in my memory. First, in late July, they won the Junior Olympics the same day Neil Armstrong took a small step out onto the stony sterile silent moon dust. I cradled the trophy we won all the way home, and learned for the first time about the depression which hits when you think you’ve reached a pinnacle, celebrated with everyone, and then, as has to happen, you find yourself all alone with no more heights to scale. And second, at our league championship in August, those little girls won every single race. The final event for us was the freestyle relay – four kids each going 25 meters. A grown woman can do this in under a minute; my girls were only ten seconds slower than that. They were so much better than any of the other teams, our last girl finished her leg when the other teams third swimmers were still flailing away at the other end of the pool.

As I watched our anchor, Linda Christian, churning up a wave down that final lap, and heard the crowd, and especially our kids’ parents, going nuts in the background (this was being held at our own pool), I felt time stop. I looked up at the light blue evening sky, just a hint of Fall’s coolness in the air. The crowd noise faded away, and Linda’s arms moved into a slow motion windmill. I thought of how much they’d worked, every morning, every day. How they’d actually followed instructions, swum all the laps, improved their strokes, finished each race hard, just like I’d said. How I’d guided them, but couldn’t really swim for them. How, in fact, I had very little to do with their success, only making the opportunity available to them. I realised, at just that one slight scratch in time, I was transcendently happy, living in a Perfect Moment, where athletic endeavor merged into artistic self-expression. The only way I knew how to capture and celebrate such a feeling was to whistle, putting my every fiber into the shrillness from my lungs.

Bruce standing up there, back to the audience, right hip thrust out, left knee and leg pumping up and down, guiding his band into “Thunder Road” – I saw that, and felt another Perfect Moment, one I would like to live in forever but knew I never could. I jumped up on the sound guys’ platform, threw my left arm into the air, and whistled as loud as I could. It was barely a whisper amidst the amps and cheers.

April and I turned towards each other, smiles shared in pure harmonic joy. “Darlin’, you know just what I’m here for. So you’re scared and you’re thinking we ain’t that young anymore.” Raising our chins up high, two hound dogs howling at the moon, we shouted, “Show a little faith! There’s magic in the night…” We’d found our song.

The evening went on like that for three hours more. Towards the end, Bruce launched into “Twist and Shout” by saying “My doctor told me if I played this song one more time, I was gonna have a heart attack! But I don’t care – you guys deserve it!” Some people, like Peter Horton, are simply nice guys loaded with talent, people it’s impossible to hate. They seem to have such fun, and want to share it with you. That’s what everyone saw in Bruce Springsteen, when they went to his show. It was as if he were looking at and singing to each of us, personally. Anyway, he and Clarence launched into “Twist and Shout”, the Big Man pumping his sax back and forth in front of the speakers, Bruce jumping up on top of an amp, duck walking across the stage, sliding on one knee, falling down exhausted, still playing and singing. Then, he jumps up, and launches into “Rosalita”.

This precipitated a mass rush towards the stage. Everyone on the main floor left their assigned area (no one had been sitting the whole night), and filled the aisles. The bolder balcony dwellers dropped down from the edge onto the main floor. The whole place was a mass of swaying, singing sybarites, arms overhead, clapping, sweating, almost swooning.

After the third encore, half of us started filing out, still buzzing, while the less exhausted remained inside, clapping, stomping, “Bruuuuce”-ing. And back he came, one more time, pounding out some timeless fifties rock and roll instrumental, ’cause he loved it all so much.

Oh, the strength and endless optimism at age twenty-six, of those of us in the class of ’49. To this day, I don’t remember driving the two hours back to LA. But I do remember trying to explain it all the next morning to my fellow residents while we whiled away the call day on Gyn. They smiled, but they Just. Didn’t. Get. It. 

********

!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!

This time, I felt centered enough to write back. I’d stopped making copies of my letters to Mike, all I remember is congratulating him on finding someone with whom to share this part of his life. Then I went on to describe my own journey, leaving out any hint of other men. Not that there were any then.

At Beth Israel I started up with guided therapy, seeing a few clients in the clinic there. At first, listening to their sad tales of rejection, remorse, and general confusion, I felt awkward, inadequate, and a bit of a fraud. After each session, I’d de-brief with my instructor, Dr. Theobald.

“I’m not sure I have my own head together. What right do I have to help someone else?” I asked after my first independent clinical encounter.

“You must remember, these sessions are not about you. You are not sharing your life, your own feelings, with these people. You are first of all reflecting back to them a dispassionate picture of what you hear, then guiding their thoughts toward a constructive solution to whatever is troubling them.”

The rules for that were simple to say, but hard to apply. “Listen. Reflect (repeat). Question non-directively. Guide towards positivity.” Confining myself to those tasks, I gradually learned to stay alert, attentive.

Looking back at that first month, I realize I learned everything I needed to become a therapist. The remainder of my training, and beyond, have been devoted to refining those insights.

“How do I know what her problem is, how do I decide on her diagnosis?” I asked my instructor.

“They tell you, they always tell you,” he replied with a courteous smile.

“What do you mean, how can they know?”

“I start by asking, ‘How can I help you today?’ Almost always, the first thing they talk about is your answer. Let them guide you to their problems, their concerns, don’t try to second guess them. What did she tell you today?”

“She can’t work, take care of her kids, and get enough sleep. It’s ‘making her crazy.’ Doesn’t seem like a mental health problem.”

“It is if she thinks it’s making her crazy. Where did you go next?”

I tried to remember the conversation, thinking maybe I should have taken notes. “Um, I asked about her work, what kind of work she did.” Dr. Theobald frowned almost imperceptibly. “That wasn’t right?”

He smiled again. “Well, it probably would have gotten you there eventually. But I like to reflect back to them what they’ve said, see if they can expand on it, fill it out a bit more.”

“How do you do that?”

“A little trick I use, is just repeat back to them what I hear as their key thought, maybe trigger a deeper response. In this case, I might ask, ‘It’s making you crazy?’ Recognize, acknowledge what’s hurting, why they came to you for help.”

That year, I finished up my work with Drs. W & B at the CDU. Once we’d submitted our paper on regional anesthesia and newborn behavior, and finished the data gathering for early mother-infant reciprocity, Barry had an evening meeting at his home one weekend to discuss the next project.

“I feel confident we’ve shown that even two-week old infants have a built-in understanding of social interaction. They may not be able to talk, but it’s obvious they have feelings about their caregiver, usually their mother. They not only feel and respond, they also attempt to guide and control the relationship. How they move, vocalize, where they look, their facial expressions – all of these seem hard-wired from the very start, meant to capture and retain the attention of other people. Probably because those who don’t have this capacity were selected against. They can’t get any food, water, anything, unless someone else gets it for them.”

Lauren looked around the group, nodded at me, and asserted, “It works both ways, doesn’t it Barry? Mothers must have the same feelings, the same orientation, right from the start. I remember my own babies…labor hurt so much, first the contractions that never seemed to end, then the pushing and pushing and pushing, and stretching – it was so exhausting, you’d think all I’d want to do was lie back and sleep.”

“Sleep?” I reflected.

“No, all I wanted was to look at, to hold, to feel them, right from the start. I wanted them to look at me, to smile at me, so I smiled, and laughed, and…” she misted over with the memories. “Sorry…I’m sorry. It’s just so…”

Barry smiled, saying, “No, thank you, Lauren. You just gave me an idea where we ought to go next.”

Where we went next was to upend the reciprocity study. We brought in seven more mother-baby pairs to our little curtain-lined dual video tape set-up. Two we saw six times, for longitudinal date. Three we saw twice, and two more only once. Each time, we recorded two 3-minute interactions, separated by 30 seconds. One of those was as before, simply letting the mother and baby interact as they normally would. The other, we asked the mom to sit still, stone-faced, and observed the baby’s actions.

The differences were striking. One of my little essays for an “entrapment” session felt like I was writing a horror movie script:

“…He arches forward, slumps over, tucks his chin down on one shoulder, but he looks up at her face under lowered eyebrows. This position lasts for over a minute, with brief checking looks at the mother occurring almost every 10 seconds. He grimaces briefly and his facial expression becomes more serious, his eyebrows furrowing. Finally, he completely withdraws, his body curled over, his head down, He does not look again at this mother…rocking his head. He looks wary, helpless, and withdrawn. As the mother exits, he looks halfway up in her direction, but his sober facial expression and his curled body position do not change.”

Overall, the differences were striking. The infants smiled less, spent less time oriented towards their mothers, looking at them much less often, ending up slumped down in their seats, withdrawn and, I surmised, filled with existential dread.

Barry was more upbeat about the results. “This confirms infants are active participants in their most early relationships. They alter their behavior depending on how they are treated, They understand the rules of social interaction from the time they are born, maybe even before. They don’t yet have words, but they most definitely have a language, one they can speak and understand. They use those ‘words’ to manipulate their environment, specifically their relationships.”

I found myself saying, “It’s not only words, Barry. It’s feelings, too. They have them, express them, and understand them in their mothers, no? Feelings go along with, maybe even come before words.”

********

!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!

Early Spring, another fat envelope from LA, another of what Mike called “Venice Stories”.

OUR DOG HAS MORE FRIENDS THAN WE DO

“Go get it, Buff. Come on boy, you’ve got it! OK, now bring it back!” April and I watched our 8 week-old Golden Retriever puppy, “Great White Buffalo”, pad into the water on giant paws, snatch a stick from the foam, and waddle hyperkinetically back up the sloping sand to our feet. He smiled crazily, having retrieved from water at his master’s command for the first time in his life.

“Geez, these guys must be bred for this – they do it naturally.”

“You’ve never done this before?”

“Well, just in the living room, you know, throwing that sock. But we’ve never trained him or anything, never given him a reward for fetching.” I marveled at the Darwinian strength of his instincts.

“Look at him,” April pointed. “He’s trying to swim!” This little guy had bug eyes as he tasted salt water. Madly dog paddling, he stayed one stroke ahead of a breaker with a stick the size of his leg clamped in his mouth. 

……

Buff lives in our front yard, with his step mother Tasha, a Collie/Shepherd mix saved from the pound a year or two before we bought Buff purebred from a breeder in Diamond Bar. She’s smart and cautious where Buff is quick and reactive. They spend their days rooting amidst the weeds in the 10′ by 20′ patch of turf in front of our house, lazing on the porch when the sun got too hot. They live for our morning and evening walks down to the beach.

Our own little patch of sand stretches between two piles of rocks, one anchoring a storm drain outlet, the other a T-shaped jetty protecting the beach from northbound waves. Evenings, I open the gate to our little yard, and let the dogs trot down the sidewalk, tugging at leashes, to the open sand past the boardwalk. There, I free them from restraint, and Buff whips away towards the water like some alcohol-fueled funny car whose drag chute has failed to open. His tongue lurching out to one side, he rockets straight over the sand, front and rear paws working like horizontal pistons – first spread out front and far behind, then rammed all four together underneath. Tasha, the lady, has a more stately entrance to the water. While Buff bounds first on his front feet, and then his rear, she works each side in tandem. I almost expect her to prance along with her tail in the air like some Disney poodle or Aristocat.

Buff never has figured out that he can’t chase a stick until I get there. To kill time and cool his jets while waiting for me to catch up, he’ll hit the water and do a quick 180, catching his tail in the languid pools left over from the waves. He’ll throw his snout down into the wet sand, and jump up like a bare back bronc trying to buck a rodeo cowboy. Finally, Tasha and I amble up and I heft the stick I’d brought along.

Living in Venice, and spending the rest of my time in a hospital or on the freeway, I don’t have easy access to trees, alive or dead. So I had grabbed a two by two one day from a construction site, about two feet long, and saved it by the door as Buff’s fetching stick. I’d skim it over the water, trying to land it past the breakers’ peaks. As soon as my arm goes back for the fling, Buff runs until the water hits his chest. Then he  jumps up a bit, and paddles out to sea, hoping to spy the flying stick over his head while keeping spray out of his eyes. (He’s so eager to fetch, I can easily fool him four or five times in a row with a fake toss, if I want some cheap amusement.) No matter where I threw, he’ll reach the stick within a second or two after it leaves my hand; turning as he grabs, he swims, then runs back to my side, simultaneously dropping the stick at my feet and soaking my legs with his shake. Then he’ll sit down, tongue lolling, and give me that Golden idiot grin while panting heavily, waiting for me to throw again.

He’s tireless. My arm will give out long before he ever does. Ten, twenty, thirty times in a row – he never quits out, always wants more. A regular canine boomerang.

Tasha is more genteel, of course. While Buff is swimming himself to exhaustion, she taps along the edge of the foam, taking care never to let the water get above her ankles. She’ll race in and out as the waves break and fall, running a zig-zag along the squishy waterlogged sand, barking encouragingly while Buff does all the work.

When I get tired, April and I walk from one rock wall to the other and back. We link arms behind each other’s back, lock hips side-by-side, and synchronize our steps to sway together. If we time it right, and the wind and smog cooperate, we hit my favorite time of night, that magic light a half hour before sunset.

When the sun angles low over the northwest, and the air is scooped clean by a passing winter storm, the beach becomes electric. Each facet of the cups in the choppy water shows a different side to the light, yet a rhythmic regularity comes out of the bobbing wavelets. Not yet the dullness of sunset, and no longer the harshness of the fading afternoon, the light is both softened and sharpened. In the distance, the horizon shimmers at its jagged junction with the sky. The sun is changing from white to yellow. Reflections coming off the serrated surface of the sea hit the eye like a thousand crystal prisms shining in my face. And the sand, now starting to dampen up from the invading evening fog, catches each and every aspect of the light show, transforming into a purely psychedelic backdrop for the whole affair.

The sand, while shimmering back at us, gives up its heat absorbed throughout the day. Lazy waves, their washing sounds surrounding us like a silk headdress, a swaying walk with April, dogs lapping at our sides, light coming at us like a fireworks show seen through closed eyelids, cocooning warmth of sand contrasting with the cool wet mush beneath our bare feet – evenings like that with my little family on the beach at Venice seems the center of the world, a place from which all life could emanate.

And a place you’d never want to leave. But the secret of Southern California nights, even in the summer, is the air gets cool as the sun goes down. Unlike the Midwest, a thousand miles from any cooling ocean, the beach at night can turn downright chilly. Forget your sweater, ignore your jacket, insist on shorts, and goose bumps crawl up your legs like an army of pinching spiders, pulling your skin tight before the shakes start up. So we’d tramp back home, pull up the latch on our front gate, pet the dogs one last time on the porch steps, and move inside for an evening of home life.

……

Sometimes we’ll go down to the boardwalk without the dogs, and they’ll moan a bit, jumping up to get their front paws on the five foot high edge of the solid wood fence surrounding our yard. We give them a pet or two, and turn away. Coming back, we might see from the end of the walk a stranger, talking softly and petting Buff, or saying “hi” to Tasha (she was more reserved, and wouldn’t come to the fence for just anyone). This gave us the idea to announce Buff’s birthday to his friends. We put up a little sign, saying “Wish Buff Happy Birthday (He’s 1 today!).”

“This dog is so cool! He’s just the friendliest pup. I always bring him something when I come by. He seems to love biscuits.” A lanky long-hair smiled up at me when I came out on the porch to gather the morning sunshine before going to work. He leaned over the fence and scratched Buff, who was standing on his hind legs, leaning against the top rail of the fence. He clearly knew this guy. “Yep, this feller’s my friend. He and I talk every day. Maybe I should get him a present or something. What’s he like?”

“Well, he probably likes being petted as much as anything.”

All day, April said, people stopped by and said “Hi” to Buff. Street people, suited people, sandeled people, hippies, surfers, guys, gals, old folks, kids, cops and robbers. Hardly anybody we knew, though. Buff had a secret life he carried on while we were away at work. We only got him for those morning and evening walks down to the beach, but his fans got him all the rest of the time. He had so much love, though, we never knew the difference. He’s very easy to share.

********