1983
My mom and stepdad, Roger. Larry, Jean, and me.
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving
The 80's might be my least favorite decade. Revisiting them, I notice a reluctance to fully enter my memory. I think it's because, in the eighties, I was in the part of my "story" where I was truly lost in the world. Uncomfortable with myself, not sure what to do. Not everyone suffers a kind of chameleon-like existence, as I did - where you are acutely and confusedly aware that you comprise several different selves out there in the world, searching for...definition? A place to fit? Satisfaction, perhaps? I wasted time and energy feeling bad about that for most of the decade, in fact. But like most of the actual "growth" involved in growing up, it sorts itself out without your "doing" anything. Over time I had a few conversations with young people who described themselves in that same way, and I suddenly could be helpful, helping them see that it is just "a way" of being. That it is not wrong or bad, it's just a design, and it gets easier. Hang in there with your different selves, people like me. As for the story I'm going to tell, this particular personality trait isn't necessarily a part of it, explicitly, but is more of an underpinning. Who would I be, now?
So, 1983 followed 1982, the year I believed I was dying of one of a succession of diseases I'd read about in the medical journals I processed in my job at Washington University Medical School Library. It strengthened the idea that if I married my boyfriend Larry, a medical student there, he could potentially save my life, should I be struck with a rare illness, with early diagnosis ...Clearly, I suffered job-induced hypochondria. I loved talking diseases with Larry -- driving to Elsah Landing for pie, eating at the Sunshine Inn, going for hikes, weekends with other medical student friends in Columbia, MO, my morbid interest could usually be indulged. During those days I saw my doctor more than a few times after convincing myself I had something terrible. He was a good doctor, though, and once said, "Here, I'm going to prescribe you this. And you will go to work tomorrow and look it up, and read the side effects, and you won't take it." Then he laughed. I needed that. By the time I left my job there, I'd burned up almost all my hypochondria. I decided to finish my degree in psychology, hoping to focus on psychosomatic illnesses.
So, 1983 followed 1982, the year I believed I was dying of one of a succession of diseases I'd read about in the medical journals I processed in my job at Washington University Medical School Library. It strengthened the idea that if I married my boyfriend Larry, a medical student there, he could potentially save my life, should I be struck with a rare illness, with early diagnosis ...Clearly, I suffered job-induced hypochondria. I loved talking diseases with Larry -- driving to Elsah Landing for pie, eating at the Sunshine Inn, going for hikes, weekends with other medical student friends in Columbia, MO, my morbid interest could usually be indulged. During those days I saw my doctor more than a few times after convincing myself I had something terrible. He was a good doctor, though, and once said, "Here, I'm going to prescribe you this. And you will go to work tomorrow and look it up, and read the side effects, and you won't take it." Then he laughed. I needed that. By the time I left my job there, I'd burned up almost all my hypochondria. I decided to finish my degree in psychology, hoping to focus on psychosomatic illnesses.
In 1983 I was renting an apartment with friends in the Central West End. It was catty-cornered from New City School on Waterman Blvd.. The landlords were a really lovely couple who lived down the street a little, Ida May and Merle. She looked like an 80-something Zsa Zsa Gabor, and he was sweet and farmerlike, with a remarkably unlined pink face, a wearer of bibbed overalls, usually. They kept a garden on our property and had one behind their own house, too. Our brick house had a mural of vegetables painted on the side that could be seen if you were traveling east on Waterman. Gabe had been attending New City School since the previous year and we both loved it. It had a very progressive philosophy, the classes were small - there was team teaching, the classrooms very child-friendly, and the staff was top notch. Now, he only had to cross the street twice to get there.
Ida May had wallpapered Gabe's little room. I think they were happy that children would be among their new tenants. They got mostly university students in their properties, and they were always kind to Gabe when we ran into them. Merle had candy in his pockets. The wallpaper was a gray and beige small diamond print, a 1920's pattern, very much in keeping with the style of the house. My room was across from his and had a non-working fireplace with a mantel. I know I'd discovered Freesias around that time, I'd smelled them in Mexico, and hoped I could always have a pot of them in my room. I had a photograph I liked which had been given to me - someone had taken and enlarged it, then decided they no longer wanted it - a print of a whitewashed building under a blue sky. There were probably a few other objects there I can't recall. But a friend looked at it one day and said, I love your altar to Greece! I immediately saw what she meant. From that point, I've looked at people's mantels and bookcase arrangements, searching for unknown altars. I felt it was a good sign to have an altar to Greece. It might bring us good luck or give a blessing. It always takes a while to get used to a new house, we kept our doors open, Gabe and I so we could see into each other's rooms. I slept on my mattress on the floor, awakening one night to a thrashing mouse stuck in my hair. I think my share of the rent and utilities was $180.
I'd moved here after breaking up with Larry. Larry, Gabe and I, and several of his fellow medical student friends had been living together in a big rehabbed house on Washington Ave, that previous year. Larry was soon moving to Seattle to do his residency in psychiatry. He'd wanted to do it in Albuquerque, which I also loved - we'd gone there to check it out. I'd rallied for Seattle because I'd been there twice to visit my uncle Bobby and had fallen in love with the place. When I stepped off the plane to cross the tarmac, the air invigorated me like nothing I'd ever experienced. It was as if the mountain air woke up something inside me - as if that air was something I'd always needed. I'd spent a few months living there in 1973 and really wanted to go back. Larry finally chose Seattle - I was so happy! We'd been dating since 1979. We'd planned to move together to wherever he did his residency, sidestepping the marriage bit for awhile. I'd met his family when we went to his brother Peter's wedding in Brooklyn, NY. Larry was the oldest of 7. A big Catholic French Canadian family from Long Island. On that trip, we drove up to Woodstock and ate at Todd Rundgren's Little Bear Cafe. I had a broccoli and walnut dish that I still deliciously remember. Before we left for the trip, I had begun having weird anxiety spells. I would have periodic episodes of paralysis, lasting a few minutes, sometimes as I was falling asleep. It happened there at his parent's house one night, where we slept on an air mattress. It had happened in the stacks at the medical school library. I wondered why I was having them, the future looked fun and exciting. I remember thinking if things with Larry didn't last, at least I'd be in a city I loved. I wasn't worried about finding work. I wasn't consciously worrying as much as I was physically worrying, it seemed.
Larry had a couple of affairs while we were together, which he'd apologized for, and I'd gotten over the first one, but the second one - well, that was going to be the last one, I thought. The first woman was a student from India, she wrote poetry, he'd met her on a backpacking trip to Colorado with David, friend, and known hound dog. He'd brought home the little stapled college poetry book she'd given him. I thought it was ok, glad I didn't really like it. The second woman was the former girlfriend of a terribly handsome med student -- Couch was his last name, he looked like a surfer dude. Long hair, always wore sandals. But his girlfriend lived in St. Louis, ugh. I kind of knew her, had seen her at parties. It was clear to me then that Larry was not ready to settle down with me and Gabe. Even though in many ways, we were a good match, I couldn't talk myself into sticking with him. I confided in our housemate Ben, who told me, a little too gleefully, well, Larry said he wasn't going to leave medical school without sleeping with X, a mutual friend, either. Christ. Even if Larry could diagnose the diseases that might befall me and therefore extend my life, forget it. I would never play the role of longsufferer. Time to move on with life.
We'd taken a vacation to Mazatlan, Mexico the previous spring. In those days timeshares were eager to get business and I think we only had to pay our airfare. When it came time to tour the property our guide heard us bickering and said, "So, how long have you two been married?" Hahaha, I laughed - bad sign. Still, we had fun on that trip. We went out dancing, swam in the beautiful water, ate shrimp on the beach, bought a jar of opals from a very sunburnt albino man for 5.00 - I was worried about him, took a train to Chihuahua, to the Copper Canyon - where it had snowed. On the train, we met a dashing Mexican man whose Lagerfeld cologne, which I adored -Freesias! scented our entire carriage. He decided to come with us to the lodge. Larry and I always met foreigners whom we'd befriend and invite over. Usually, scientists that were studying or teaching at the medical school. Over the years I still fondly recall Andrew and Sylvianne from Belgium, Matt, and Flick from England. Another couple traveled the train with us, fellow sightseers of the beautiful landscapes, and interesting conversationalists. The stylish tanned woman wore her thin jeans pegged and white calfskin loafers, no socks, her hair a straight blonde bob, a look I still like. Our inexpensive and delicious dinner was shared in the dining car with this couple from Paris, she was French but could speak German, he was German but could speak English and Spanish; we had a delightful time with our traveling companions. Little vignettes from that trip still come to mind. The market, the hotel room, the children who sang for us - boarding the train at certain stops, selling food, then deboarding to return home to get more food to sell aboard the next train. They probably worked all day, I thought. Barefoot, shaking their orange juice cans with coins inside. We'd add more. Breakfasts in Mexico were amazing. I felt pervaded by the place, and happily so. I fell in love with Mazatlan. Loved the cuisine, the smells, the flowers everywhere, the sound of the language, singing pet birds everywhere. I was so surprised that anywhere we went I would love the coffee, and every time I asked about it, it was Nescafe!
One evening when we got back to St. Louis, I sat talking with Larry's sister, Jean, who'd come to visit, and Tom, a housemate. Larry came in and said ..." when I move to Seattle..." and something turned and clicked in me. Jean, laughing, said, "You mean when you two move to Seattle!" Larry started to correct himself, but I said, No. He means when he moves to Seattle. And it was done. For a few days, he tried to talk to me about it, but I wouldn't say a word. I had to get my resolve going, right then and there. Talking might confuse me. I moved into Gabe's room. Larry was upset, tried to see me at work. I was determined. Jean was very sad but understood, I felt bad that I'd ruined her visit to see her brother, but it was just weird timing. I remember watering the plants on the staircase landing one day and Larry asked, why won't you talk to me? I just kept pouring water and said flatly, because I don't like you. Everyone would be moving in three months, and our mutual friend had just gotten the place on Waterman, I called to see if she wanted housemates. She did, and she had a young son, too, so it seemed like great timing. For those remaining months, though, I crossed the street if I saw Larry walking down Euclid- we took the same route to and from the medical school each day. Just to try this weird spite thing on for size, I had a few dates with one of his friends, a really nice guy, but we didn't click. The whole period was like a reshuffling of the deck. Several of the med students seemed to be getting out of relationships or starting new ones. I wondered if it was a medical school phenomenon. On to newer and better things! Well, I was free now, too.
So, Gabe and I ensconced in our new dwelling, feeling unmoored, tried to get on with things, but this was rougher than I'd expected. I had thought I might marry Larry and we would have a nice life in Seattle - he'd have interesting cases to discuss, not his own, of course. I'd finish school. The weird little anxiety spells still happened occasionally. One day his new girlfriend called to ask if I was really over Larry, she didn't want to be a homewrecker. I told her, you can have him, I'm done. But it wasn't that easy. Gabe and Larry had loved each other, too. It was hard to see Gabe lose another father figure, I mean he still had his dad, but I'd now had two boyfriends whom Gabe had gotten close to in the years since I'd left his dad. I knew it was bad for a child. Larry wrote him very nice letters for a year or so afterward, sent him clippings and postcards. About this time an aunt said to me, "you need to give that child stability. Stability! You know. The thing that keeps them from going crazy." She was right. But I didn't know how. I began to think the best thing to do would be a move to Columbus, Ohio where my family had moved. Go to school, there. I began thinking about a different path to finishing school and supporting myself and Gabe. But I was dogged by the feeling that I was lost, that things never worked out for me, that I was always in some kind of maelstrom of my own making. Many, many years later, a wise woman told me, "You keep thinking you have made mistakes...having a kid at 16... not going to Seattle with Larry, but these events kept you from being someone who could just... collect shiny things in a driveway! For Pete's' sake! Be thankful!" I wasn't sure it was one or the other, but I laughed. Instant perspective change, those words.
Ida May had wallpapered Gabe's little room. I think they were happy that children would be among their new tenants. They got mostly university students in their properties, and they were always kind to Gabe when we ran into them. Merle had candy in his pockets. The wallpaper was a gray and beige small diamond print, a 1920's pattern, very much in keeping with the style of the house. My room was across from his and had a non-working fireplace with a mantel. I know I'd discovered Freesias around that time, I'd smelled them in Mexico, and hoped I could always have a pot of them in my room. I had a photograph I liked which had been given to me - someone had taken and enlarged it, then decided they no longer wanted it - a print of a whitewashed building under a blue sky. There were probably a few other objects there I can't recall. But a friend looked at it one day and said, I love your altar to Greece! I immediately saw what she meant. From that point, I've looked at people's mantels and bookcase arrangements, searching for unknown altars. I felt it was a good sign to have an altar to Greece. It might bring us good luck or give a blessing. It always takes a while to get used to a new house, we kept our doors open, Gabe and I so we could see into each other's rooms. I slept on my mattress on the floor, awakening one night to a thrashing mouse stuck in my hair. I think my share of the rent and utilities was $180.
I'd moved here after breaking up with Larry. Larry, Gabe and I, and several of his fellow medical student friends had been living together in a big rehabbed house on Washington Ave, that previous year. Larry was soon moving to Seattle to do his residency in psychiatry. He'd wanted to do it in Albuquerque, which I also loved - we'd gone there to check it out. I'd rallied for Seattle because I'd been there twice to visit my uncle Bobby and had fallen in love with the place. When I stepped off the plane to cross the tarmac, the air invigorated me like nothing I'd ever experienced. It was as if the mountain air woke up something inside me - as if that air was something I'd always needed. I'd spent a few months living there in 1973 and really wanted to go back. Larry finally chose Seattle - I was so happy! We'd been dating since 1979. We'd planned to move together to wherever he did his residency, sidestepping the marriage bit for awhile. I'd met his family when we went to his brother Peter's wedding in Brooklyn, NY. Larry was the oldest of 7. A big Catholic French Canadian family from Long Island. On that trip, we drove up to Woodstock and ate at Todd Rundgren's Little Bear Cafe. I had a broccoli and walnut dish that I still deliciously remember. Before we left for the trip, I had begun having weird anxiety spells. I would have periodic episodes of paralysis, lasting a few minutes, sometimes as I was falling asleep. It happened there at his parent's house one night, where we slept on an air mattress. It had happened in the stacks at the medical school library. I wondered why I was having them, the future looked fun and exciting. I remember thinking if things with Larry didn't last, at least I'd be in a city I loved. I wasn't worried about finding work. I wasn't consciously worrying as much as I was physically worrying, it seemed.
Larry had a couple of affairs while we were together, which he'd apologized for, and I'd gotten over the first one, but the second one - well, that was going to be the last one, I thought. The first woman was a student from India, she wrote poetry, he'd met her on a backpacking trip to Colorado with David, friend, and known hound dog. He'd brought home the little stapled college poetry book she'd given him. I thought it was ok, glad I didn't really like it. The second woman was the former girlfriend of a terribly handsome med student -- Couch was his last name, he looked like a surfer dude. Long hair, always wore sandals. But his girlfriend lived in St. Louis, ugh. I kind of knew her, had seen her at parties. It was clear to me then that Larry was not ready to settle down with me and Gabe. Even though in many ways, we were a good match, I couldn't talk myself into sticking with him. I confided in our housemate Ben, who told me, a little too gleefully, well, Larry said he wasn't going to leave medical school without sleeping with X, a mutual friend, either. Christ. Even if Larry could diagnose the diseases that might befall me and therefore extend my life, forget it. I would never play the role of longsufferer. Time to move on with life.
We'd taken a vacation to Mazatlan, Mexico the previous spring. In those days timeshares were eager to get business and I think we only had to pay our airfare. When it came time to tour the property our guide heard us bickering and said, "So, how long have you two been married?" Hahaha, I laughed - bad sign. Still, we had fun on that trip. We went out dancing, swam in the beautiful water, ate shrimp on the beach, bought a jar of opals from a very sunburnt albino man for 5.00 - I was worried about him, took a train to Chihuahua, to the Copper Canyon - where it had snowed. On the train, we met a dashing Mexican man whose Lagerfeld cologne, which I adored -Freesias! scented our entire carriage. He decided to come with us to the lodge. Larry and I always met foreigners whom we'd befriend and invite over. Usually, scientists that were studying or teaching at the medical school. Over the years I still fondly recall Andrew and Sylvianne from Belgium, Matt, and Flick from England. Another couple traveled the train with us, fellow sightseers of the beautiful landscapes, and interesting conversationalists. The stylish tanned woman wore her thin jeans pegged and white calfskin loafers, no socks, her hair a straight blonde bob, a look I still like. Our inexpensive and delicious dinner was shared in the dining car with this couple from Paris, she was French but could speak German, he was German but could speak English and Spanish; we had a delightful time with our traveling companions. Little vignettes from that trip still come to mind. The market, the hotel room, the children who sang for us - boarding the train at certain stops, selling food, then deboarding to return home to get more food to sell aboard the next train. They probably worked all day, I thought. Barefoot, shaking their orange juice cans with coins inside. We'd add more. Breakfasts in Mexico were amazing. I felt pervaded by the place, and happily so. I fell in love with Mazatlan. Loved the cuisine, the smells, the flowers everywhere, the sound of the language, singing pet birds everywhere. I was so surprised that anywhere we went I would love the coffee, and every time I asked about it, it was Nescafe!
One evening when we got back to St. Louis, I sat talking with Larry's sister, Jean, who'd come to visit, and Tom, a housemate. Larry came in and said ..." when I move to Seattle..." and something turned and clicked in me. Jean, laughing, said, "You mean when you two move to Seattle!" Larry started to correct himself, but I said, No. He means when he moves to Seattle. And it was done. For a few days, he tried to talk to me about it, but I wouldn't say a word. I had to get my resolve going, right then and there. Talking might confuse me. I moved into Gabe's room. Larry was upset, tried to see me at work. I was determined. Jean was very sad but understood, I felt bad that I'd ruined her visit to see her brother, but it was just weird timing. I remember watering the plants on the staircase landing one day and Larry asked, why won't you talk to me? I just kept pouring water and said flatly, because I don't like you. Everyone would be moving in three months, and our mutual friend had just gotten the place on Waterman, I called to see if she wanted housemates. She did, and she had a young son, too, so it seemed like great timing. For those remaining months, though, I crossed the street if I saw Larry walking down Euclid- we took the same route to and from the medical school each day. Just to try this weird spite thing on for size, I had a few dates with one of his friends, a really nice guy, but we didn't click. The whole period was like a reshuffling of the deck. Several of the med students seemed to be getting out of relationships or starting new ones. I wondered if it was a medical school phenomenon. On to newer and better things! Well, I was free now, too.
So, Gabe and I ensconced in our new dwelling, feeling unmoored, tried to get on with things, but this was rougher than I'd expected. I had thought I might marry Larry and we would have a nice life in Seattle - he'd have interesting cases to discuss, not his own, of course. I'd finish school. The weird little anxiety spells still happened occasionally. One day his new girlfriend called to ask if I was really over Larry, she didn't want to be a homewrecker. I told her, you can have him, I'm done. But it wasn't that easy. Gabe and Larry had loved each other, too. It was hard to see Gabe lose another father figure, I mean he still had his dad, but I'd now had two boyfriends whom Gabe had gotten close to in the years since I'd left his dad. I knew it was bad for a child. Larry wrote him very nice letters for a year or so afterward, sent him clippings and postcards. About this time an aunt said to me, "you need to give that child stability. Stability! You know. The thing that keeps them from going crazy." She was right. But I didn't know how. I began to think the best thing to do would be a move to Columbus, Ohio where my family had moved. Go to school, there. I began thinking about a different path to finishing school and supporting myself and Gabe. But I was dogged by the feeling that I was lost, that things never worked out for me, that I was always in some kind of maelstrom of my own making. Many, many years later, a wise woman told me, "You keep thinking you have made mistakes...having a kid at 16... not going to Seattle with Larry, but these events kept you from being someone who could just... collect shiny things in a driveway! For Pete's' sake! Be thankful!" I wasn't sure it was one or the other, but I laughed. Instant perspective change, those words.
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