2018-08-21 Cincinnati
Happy Anniversary
Part 3
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Our Romance Part I: Un-courtship: February 1971 to August 1977
(continued from 2018-08-20)
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February 1975
In the 1970s, maybe now too, getting accepted to med. school was easiest in your home state. So I applied to all four in Ohio (Ohio State, U. Cincinnati, U. Toledo, and Case Western Reserve), plus a smattering of even more prestigious schools that I would consider over any of these (I got rejected from them all except for Harvard where I was wait-listed). U. Cincinnati sent recruiters to Harvard, so I was interviewed at Lowell House (where our Master [an unfortunate title], Zeph Stewart, was a Cincinnati native) and accepted shortly thereafter.
I was doing a project on Harlan County, Kentucky, in miners’ health and the Frontier Nursing Service (possibly the inspiration for SOTENI’s AIDS Barefoot Doctors, born a generation later), and decided to visit over spring break, with a stop in Cincinnati to check out UC.
Lawson was a first-year med. student at UC, and I wrote him, asking if I could visit him as I traveled to Appalachia. (Shy? I ain’t.)
When he answered my letter by calling,[1] I was thrilled.
“Sure,” he said. Up went my eyebrows – along with my interest in attending UC. (Subtle? I ain’t.)
When he said I could stay with him, my eyes bulged and my interest in UC further mushroomed. (Cautious? I ain’t.)
And I assure you, it wasn’t because UC was the oldest medical school west of the Allegheny Mountains, the home of Albert Sabin, the birthplace of Zeph (and Potter, his more famous brother) Stewart, or the gateway to Appalachia, that made me put an enormous circle[2] (a target? A halo?) around “UC” in my mind’s eye.
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April 1975
Lawson greeted me with the always-encompassing, but not yet familiar Wulsin bearhug (spoiler alert: Lawson is not only the best kisser in the world, he’s also the best hugger), and welcomed me to his apartment on the first floor of an old mansion on Eden Avenue, just a few blocks from the med. school. An earnest food co-op member, he loaded his shelves with jars ranging in size from 4 ounces to 8 quarts, some giant mothers. Filled with flour, sugar, spices, nuts, dried fruit, beans, seeds, peanut butter (which, regardless of the stirring and stirring as we ate it, always became an inedible and indelible lump at the bottom of the jar). Cartons of homemade yogurt in various stages of fermentation lined the windowsills. Dinner was lentil soup from his crockpot and zucchini bread from his toaster-oven, which he used for almost all his baking (borrowing housemate Andy Benoit’s real oven only for larger concoctions).
Conversation flowed easily. Lawson was his usual kind and scintillating self and I was falling in love. We talked about Jesus Christ Superstar, the movie, bizarrely produced in modern Palestine (Israel?), complete with tanks coming over the desert. That led us to our religious upbringing – he, a Baptized & Confirmed (signed, sealed, delivered) Episcopalian, but not pious. I, on the other hand, considered myself christian, at least with a small “c.” The granddaughter of an Episcopal priest and Presbyterian minister, I had been raised feeling comfortable with Jesus as the incarnation of God=Love. My family’s social life had revolved around the church – Trinity in Binghamton; St Paul’s in East Cleveland. Singing hymns, teaching Sunday School, bedtime prayers, family blessings, church rituals like Communion and weddings and burials – all fed me and gave me meaning.
Lawson wanted to understand me more, and his interest provoked – in a good way – my spirituality. Lawson has this effect on people: he makes you like yourself for being whoever you are. He’s not a rah-rah-effuser. But his underlying (and overarching) instinctive curiosity and existential joy make his steady attention and probing questions feel supportive, positive, nourishing, expanding. You’re a greater person around him. (Greater? I ain.)
We talked about our families – we each have 3 brothers. He also has a sister, and we talked about the greater challenges girls have than boys. He was a feminist from way back.
We talked about our mutual college friends – john and Steph, now living together in Charlottesville; Toby McGrath in Recife; Tom Fuller at Harvard Law. I loved Lawson’s interest in our friends’ well-being. We didn’t use the word “self-actualization,” but I remember how he cared more about fulfillment than prestige.
We talked about Jeff, of course, who was the original reason we knew each other. Jeff was working in Cleveland, having left Harvard after his second psychotic break and hospitalization at Massachusetts Mental Health Center. (2nd spoiler alert: Lawson ends up doing his Psychiatry training at Mass Mental!) Tears sprang to his eyes as he listened to the story of Jeff’s going off lithium and repeated excursions on LSD and mescaline.
We talked about writing, how he had always thought he would be a professor, had majored in English in college, but somehow decided he needed a vocation that offered him stimulation, interaction, connection – things to write about. That’s why he had chosen to be a doctor. Medicine would fuel his creativity. He hoped to take a year off to go to England and “learn real English.”
It was past midnight and neither of us seemed to want to stop the conversation. I had checked out Lawson’s sleeping arrangements – there was a daybed that doubled as a couch in his kitchen-dining-living room, and a double bed in his bedroom-study. I had been wondering just how this evening might pan out…
When Lawson invited me to use either bed, I was momentarily overjoyed, figuring we could do some Major Cuddling (I never equated sharing a bed with sex). But my hopes were immediately dashed when he added, “…because I’ll be going over to Nancy’s.”
My jaw dropped metaphorically to the floor. But I stayed cool as the metaphorical cucumber, and immediately answered, “Oh, I’ll sleep here,” pointing to the daybed in the corner. Meanwhile, I retraced our conversation for all references to Nancy, yes, a fellow med. student with whom Lawson had gone camping in the Pacific Northwest, yes, someone who fixed her own car, yes, the one who was ok about fellow med. students examining her – and other female classmates’ – breasts, or was she the med. student who didn’t accept it, I couldn’t remember what else Lawson had said about her. It’s not that he ever said he was available; I had just made it true because I wanted it to be true.
I slept alone on the narrow cot, as Lawson headed off to his girlfriend’s. I fell asleep with the image of drawing a huge X – akin to Zorro’s “Z” – across my acceptance letter from UC.
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To be continued…
[1] A friendly reminder that long-distance calls cost extra, and we limited them accordingly. Hence they were unusual.
[2] See my blog “The Mighty O.”
VicWulsin 