2018-09-01 Cincinnati

Pater Noster – Capitulum Unum [1]

***

I want to apologize to my three godchildren.

I have shirked my duties.  I was never regular with cards and presents.  I didn’t show up for your personal High Holy Days, be they religious (like Confirmation) or secular (like high school graduation).  I have not lived a saintly life, and in fact, would want you to do as I say more than do as I do.  I have been remiss in following my vows at your christenings (Jimmy and John Peter) and baptism (Liza).  I wish the time-space continuum had provided more opportunities for connecting with each of you.

Allow me to offer one prayer and why it has been my mainstay for most of my 64 years on planet Earth – the Lord’s Prayer.  I grew up with this translation:

Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.  Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done.  On earth as it is in Heaven.  Give us this day our Daily Bread.  And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory. Forever and ever.  Amen.

Word by word, line by line, I whisper this prayer to give thanks and seek solace, to straighten-out confusion and calm down, to center and stay, to be still and go deep, to grieve and to accept.

Our:

From its very first word, the Lord’s Prayer indicates the part of spirituality that is plural – not singular.  It’s about others as well as myself.

Christianity is a religion of connection.  The word “religion” in fact comes from the roots of “re” (again) and “ligate” (connect).  In its very definition, religion means that we are connecting again.  This has two important ramifications.

1. With whom or what we are connecting is not specified. For me, the connections are human.  My oneness with other life forms (humans and chimpanzees apparently share 98.8% of our DNA for example) moves me little.  My relationships with inanimate objects – ranging from my favorite possessions (Nana’s piano, the gold dove of the Holy Spirit I wear around my neck, thousands of photographs) to important structures (the 3 houses that Lawson and I have owned, in two of which we raised our family) – rarely appear in my prayer life.  They’re irrelevant.

Connecting with institutions does matter sometimes, because those institutions comprise people.  I’m very sentimental, by which I mean that I treasure my earlier experiences and activities.  My schools (as far back as Alexander Hamilton Elementary School in Binghamton, New York, and then Kirk Junior & Shaw High Schools in East Cleveland, and then Radcliffe/Harvard, Case Western Reserve, the University of Nairobi (which I attended for less than one year), the Harvard School of Public Health (in Boston – very different from the undergraduate behemoth in Cambridge), and most recently the University of Cincinnati) and my churches (beginning with Trinity in Binghamton, then St. Paul’s East Cleveland, Good Shepherd in Waban, St. Thomas in Terrace Park, St. Andrew’s in Evanston) typify the people-filled institutions that anchor my life.

Belonging to other organizations has also connected me with human beings that matter to me and consequently remind me that I matter.  I am matter.  And I matter.

As a child I learned that “God is Everywhere,” which I took literally.  Seeing a bare lightbulb over my head, I asked my mother, “Is God in the lightbulb?”  I was not being disrespectful or argumentative.  I sincerely wondered.

Mom answered, “God is everywhere people are.”

I like her answer.

Connecting with paradigms is too abstract for me, as much as I embrace progressive politics, globalism, and justice.

My human ligations are many: people currently in my life ring truest and loudest.  But there are also people whom I loved who have died, my brother Howie, leading the pack.

Religion connects me with people I’ve never met and never will meet.  It connects me with a billion people in China, and millions of Native Americans slaughtered by European conquistadors and imperialists since the 15^th century.  Religion connects me with fellow liberals and redneck conservatives, with 21^st century Americans and prehistoric cavemen [sic], with intellectual giants like Stephen Hawking and spiritual goliaths like Jamie and Sammy Hadden, with nuns sworn to lives of silence and disrespectful and hilarious comedians like Dave Barry, Andy Borowitz, David Sedaris, and Jon Stewart, with heroes like Nelson Mandela and villains like Adolf Hitler, with fellow christians and adamant atheists like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Aynara Chavez Wulsin.

2. The “re” implies that our original or earlier connections have weakened, perhaps severed, and religion is the vessel through which we can strengthen bonds and heal ragged edges. One of the many mysteries of life is if and how we have been connected before our arrivals on Earth.

 ***

Roman Catholics and Episcopalians are members of denominations that are founded on a creed.  When I was a teenager, the translation of the Nicene Creed, which we recite at every service, was changed from “I believe” to “We believe.”  Whoa!  Am I speaking for all the other congregants as I merrily repeat these articles of faith?

I interpret it that what I believe as an individual is less important than what I believe as a member of a group of people connected in our desire to find, feel, and practice Love.  As I say “We believe” aloud, I am saying silently “We try to believe.”

I do believe that my caveat is acceptable by whomever is listening, be it Lawson standing next to me, the St. Andrew’s congregation, or God with a capital G.

Faith is all about trying to believe.  If there’s no doubt, call it fact.  Or truth.  Or mathematics.

***

…to be continued…

[1] Latin for Our Father – Chapter I.

2018-08-31 Cincinnati

Happy Anniversary Part 10

***

Our Romance Part II: Courtship, beginning 19 August 1977

…continued from 2018-08-30

Cincinnati <– –> Cleveland

September 1977 – July 1978

Lawson’s and my months of wooing coincided with his 3^rd year, considered the hardest and best, of medical school.  At last, you’re on the wards, seeing all kinds of patients (the Big Five in the ‘70s were Medicine, Surgery, Psychiatry, OB-GYN, and Pediatrics), writing orders, being asked questions by vastly more experienced nurses and other health care workers, getting used to dropping the “student” in front of your name (“Student Doctor Wells” morphs into “Doctor Wells”), being humiliated by attendings and other – above you, of course – on the hierarchy, staying up all night every 3^rd night, doing your own gram stains in the messy “doctors’ lab” that’s on the same floor as your patients, learning, studying, fighting to stay awake, seeing patients get better…it’s heady, albeit exhausting.

While he spent sleepless nights in Cincinnati, I burned the midnight oil in Cleveland.  I was in my 2^nd year – still focused in lecture hall and laboratory.

Our relationship had similarities to a 1950s courtship.  Every other weekend or so, he would drive (he had a car) to see me or I would take a bus to see him.  And during those weekends, we were together.  We scheduled them, of course, on weekends he had off and I had no upcoming exams.  The ratio of fun: duties was high.[1]  We could shove aside any differences, since we had only the weekend to share.

***

…to be continued…

 

[1] I mention this because getting married after ~ 10 months’ commuting romance, was a rude awakening.  I wish the scales had fallen from my eyes.  Instead, I kept bristling against the reality that the fun: duties ratio shrinks considerably when you’re spending 24/7 with someone who is still a medical student (or intern, or resident, or junior faculty member, or tenured professor) and you’ve got Real Responsibilities in addition to hours at the hospital, clinic, laboratory, and library (like grocery shopping, laundry, thank-you notes, dentist appointments).

 

2018-08-30 Cincinnati

Happy Anniversary Part 9

***

Our Romance Part II: Courtship, beginning 19 August 1977

…continued from 2018-08-27

Campement d’Ours, Ontario

Saturday-Sunday, September 3-4, 1977

Saturday was a glorious North Country day – steady west wind, puffy white clouds, air so clear you can forget about it.  Sunday was cold, windy, rainy, and dark.

Favorite memories:

John[1] and Alice[2] sailed in the blue, Stocky[3] alone in the red, and Lawson and I in the yellow sunfish, pretend-racing up the channel a couple of miles, then running before the wind all the way back home.

**

Dr & Mrs Wulsin hosted a picnic on Fishnet Island, after which I made fun of Lawson for thinking the water too cold for swimming.  I jumped in, expecting him to follow, but he just laughed.  Mrs Wulsin applauded my gumption, and rewarded me with her French Fisherman’s shirt – a rough cotton pullover with white and blue horizontal stripes (41 years later, I still have it [of course]).  She warmed me, literally.

**

Mrs Wulsin had a penchant for gooey desserts.  That weekend the cook served us Peach Bliss (fresh peaches, meringue shells, whipped cream) and Plum Delight (cut plums, pound cake, vanilla ice cream).

**

Mrs Wulsin was good-looking, but not notably beautiful and certainly not glamourous.  Like most American women, she felt overweight (she wasn’t), and showed it by placing herself halfway behind someone else in the inevitable group photos of families on vacation.  At least she didn’t let her modesty prevent her from being in the picture.[4]

**

Dr Wulsin and I spent Sunday morning in the Big Room (don’t you love houses so grand that their rooms are named?  Campedor – the abbreviation of “Campement d’Ours,” the island has the “Map Room,” the “Captain’s Quarters,” the “Beaver Suite,” etc.) sharing a giant atlas and talking about my travels in Africa.

**

In Kenya, mothers are shown respect by being called Mama-xxx, with the suffix being the name of her child, usually her firstborn.  Having returned from Kenya just a few weeks earlier, I lapsed into the habit and called Mrs Wulsin “Mama-John,” at dinner.

Mrs Wulsin’s eyes widened.  (Little did I know then that she would prefer that I continue to call her “Mrs Wulsin” throughout our 35+ year relationship, despite my explicit request early in our marriage to use something more familial and familiar.)  Before she could express her surprise (outrage?) at my unintentional challenge to her status, Lawson said, “Hey?”

“What?” I asked him.

“’Mama-John’?” he asked.  “Not ‘Mama-Lawson’?”  Lawson had been in Africa; he knew that the honorific was typically paired with the child to whom the speaker was closest.  Wasn’t I closer to him than to John?

“Only two weeks’ difference,” I defended myself.  After all, I had (re)met Lawson just two weeks earlier; now I had met John.  Plus, John was the firstborn – significant in Africa, less so here.

“Two weeks?” Lawson was incredulous.  “How about six years?”

He was right.  Any African worth her salt would have said, “Mama-Lawson.”  Chalk it up to nerves.

**

John welcomed me by leaving on my bed a version of Emily Dickinson’s poem “I taste a liquor never brewed,” which he had either memorized or copied.

I taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!

Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.

When landlords turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove’s door,
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!

Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
From Manzanilla come![5]

***

… to be continued …

[1] John Hager Wulsin, Jr, Lawson’s older brother, eventually the Best Man at our wedding.

[2] Alice Barton Wulsin, John’s wife of ~ four months.  They had just returned from a three-month honeymoon in western Europe.  Later, a bridesmaid at our wedding.  Later still, persona non grata for forsaking John in preference for her lover.  Even later still, reconciliation, based in large part on John’s depth of compassion.

[3] Stockton Wulsin, Lawson’s youngest brother, born 3 days before my youngest brother Howie.  Howie died shortly before his 20^th birthday, 42 years ago.

[4] People who refuse to have their picture taken bother me.  Their reluctance makes me feel vain for wanting to be in the picture.  Yuck.

Similarly, don’t people realize that they put on a name tag for others?  People resist putting on name tags – I wonder if it’s because they want to be “in control” of the conversation.  And if they know your name (since you ARE wearing a nametag) and you might not remember their name, they feel in charge.  Can’t they just be nice?

Speaking of doing things for others, thanks to people who realized that getting an answering machine was a favor to your callers.  Yes, you had to lose your Luddite reputation and self-righteous pride that you were “above” technology and get with the modern age (this, in the 1970s and ‘80s): too bad for you.  (Excuse my lack of sympathy.) It was so nice to be able to leave a message and not have to keep calling and calling wondering if and when you would ever be available to chat.

Two generations later…hard to imagine telephones without voicemail.

[5] The classic version of Dickinson’s poem ends with “Leaning against the sun!”

 

Cincinnati

8/29/2018

Noreen Obilo, SOTENI Kenya’s Programmes Manager, has been asked to report on the vision for Mituntu of SOTENI’s Founders, of whom I am one.  I wrote her today:

Thank you for your earlier question about the original vision that we SOTENI founders had for the Mituntu land.  When the community donated the 52 acres to SOTENI, our goal was to use it to generate income to provide HIV/AIDS prevention and mitigation activities.  We SOTENI founders held several barazas,[1] which led to the election of the inaugural Local Management Committee [LMC].  These community representatives served as true volunteers.  The original LMC members were not provided any shillings for transport to come to meetings, allowances, nor any other remuneration.[2]  

SOTENI worked with the LMC on a needs assessment, which led to the prioritization of education, and grand plans for a Centre of Academic Excellence, based on the Starehe School model, the excellent private school in Nairobi, which was subsidized by the Roman Catholic Church, provided free education for orphans, and became so well-regarded that wealthy families began paying tuition to send their children there. 

We SOTENI co-founders thought that SOTENI Village of Hope – Mituntu Centre for Excellence would be the hub of diverse activities working together to prevent and mitigate the effects of HIV/AIDS.  Patrons with means would support SOTENI’s educational and public health mission because of Mituntu’s high quality of academic and medical services.  A volunteer architect drafted an inspiring, off-the-grid, holistic rendering of the Village that would comprise housing, farming, a community centre, and health services as well as a school with dormitories, playing fields, vocational training sites, etc.  Spectacular.  “Orphans of AIDS Leading the Fight Against AIDS” was our motto.

I identified a wealthy philanthropist (in the million-dollar category) years ago who was interested in SOTENI, and possibly donating.  This was 15 years ago – SOTENI was brand new and without a track record.  Tim’s enthusiasm faded when he learned that SOTENI did not actually own the land.  “Come back when you have the property,” he said back then.  (He has since left Cincinnati, but if SOTENI ever does get a title deed for the Mituntu property I can follow up, depending on the community’s current priorities.  The worst he can say is, “No.”[3])

***

So, what happened?

Does SOTENI own the land?

How close are we to a Centre of Excellence?

Ahhhhh….

***

The past 15 years have not gone to waste.

• The land has been developed: fenced, electrified, provided with a bore hole for dependable potable water.

 

• The land has grown maize, tomatoes, hay, watermelon, and chickens, all of which have provided income to SOTENI.

 

• The infrastructure includes 5 permanent structures and 2 latrines:

1. The original office, now serving as overnight accommodations for the two caretakers and the daytime office for the principal of the SOTENI Mituntu Mixed Secondary Day School.
2. Our large office, now divided into SOTENI’s headquarters and the single classroom for Form III.
3. The original chicken coop, now refurbished, and serving as the single classroom for Form II.
4. A new building, approximately 20 feet by 40 feet, serving as the single classroom for Form I.
5. A new building, approximately 12 feet by 15 feet, serving as the kitchen.

 

• A dirt road now connects our property with a paved road.

 

• SOTENI has supported hundreds of orphans with education, psychosocial support, homes, health care, food and water, power, uniforms and other clothing, and launching of jobs and careers.

 

• SOTENI spent six years with a staff of over 300 women educating 3,000 women in civil rights under the new Kenyan Constitution, including their right to own land; business skills, including basic accounting and banking; and health, especially reproductive health, family planning, and HIV/AIDS. Our work led to hundreds of entrepreneurial activities, over 100 of which continued after the formal program ended.

 

• SOTENI has started a day school, adding one class each year. Our target student population are children who cannot afford the fees for high school, which can range from $100 to several thousand dollars per year.

 

• SOTENI has led behavior change communication activities targeting youth, sex workers, persons living with HIV/AIDS, among others.

 

…to be continued…

 

[1]           A baraza is a public gathering, often near the chief’s compound, and led by the chief or the sub-chief, typically focused on speeches.  Members of the community gather, women in western-style dresses or kangas (large swaths of cotton material, printed with technicolor designs and cryptic sayings in Swahili sitting with their legs straight out in front of them, often a basket or baby in their laps.  Separate are the men, also dressed in western clothes, always raggedy, and the children, mostly in frayed school uniforms.

Barazas are well-attended, especially when the guest of honor, emcee, and/or special visitor provides sodas for all.  The warm sodas arrive in wire cases: Coke, Fanta [orange, lemon, black currant], Sprite, and when I’m lucky, Stoney’s [ginger ale].  Teenagers carry around the cases to the attendees, one handing over the bottles, another uncapping the lids.

 

[2]           Serving the community through nonprofit boards is not common in Kenya.  Philanthropy, African Socialism is more common than American charity, but takes a different form.  In Africa, any person who has attained the level of the currency economy – as opposed to the more common bartering economy of rural sub-Saharan Africa – is expected to support family and community members who now need currency to move up the socioeconomic ladder: school fees to be educated; costs to be transported; down payments to buy real estate, vehicles, and/or wives; etc.  It’s not unusual for a businessman [sic] in Nairobi to be supporting ten or twenty children (not their own) back home and young adults trying to make a living in a difficult, corrupt economy.

Both Africans and Americans donate to their religious organizations.  But, beyond the church or mosque, charity is meted out person-to-person in Africa, whereas in the US., institutions mediate the relationship between donor and beneficiary.

Board members of non-profit and other philanthropic institutions in Kenya expect to receive at least a token of appreciation for their time, effort, and cachet.

[3]           Actually, there is a possible worse response than “No.”  Some rejections can humiliate; that would be worse than a mere refusal.

2018-08-27 Cincinnati

Happy Anniversary Part 8

***

Our Romance Part II: Courtship, beginning 19 August 1977

…continued from 2018-08-26

***

Cleveland, Ohio

August 20, 1977

“We have several options for the day,” I told Lawson.  “We can take a driving tour of University Circle – the area around Case Western, and downtown, the Flats, the lake, East Cleveland.  I’ll introduce you to the Best Location in the Nation.[1]  Or we can walk around University Circle, enjoy the lagoon, visit the Art Museum, the Museum of Natural History.  Or I can show you the med. school.  If you’re feeling adventurous, we can go out to the Holden Arboretum – it’s about 45 minutes away – and take a long walk.  We could go to Taylor Road and meet my parents…”

“Let’s do that!” Lawson interrupted me.

“Holden Arboretum?”

“No, meet your parents.”

“OK, sure,” I agreed.  I knew they’d love to meet Lawson.

***

By the time we got to Taylor Road, Steve and Liz Edwards had already arrived.  Steve was a classmate of my father at Princeton, and a fellow ambulance driver for the American Field Service during World War II.  The six of us sat around the dining room[2] table, the hub of my family’s household, sharing stories about the war, the Middle East – where both Steve and my father had been stationed, Cameroon & Kenya, book-learning vs. life-education, professions vs. jobs (both Liz and my mother had devoted their working lives to raising children, while their husbands pursue careers), shifts in expectations of women in just one generation.

Lawson was thoughtful and articulate.  He exemplified my idea of “gentleman:” making everyone feel comfortable and significant, while not calling attention to himself.  He was enthusiastic learning about the lives of my parents and their friends; he was curious and smart; he was well-educated and well-traveled; he cared about others; he abhorred injustice; he was aware of the privilege of his own upbringing and craved giving back.

The more I listened, the more I loved him.

***

That night my parents were going to Blossom[3] and Lawson (and I) eagerly accepted their invitation to join them.  Only lawn tickets were still available, so we wouldn’t sit with them in the theater’s real seats, but as long as the rain held off, grass suited us fine.  Plus, the trip itself would involve at least an hour in the car each way – more time to get to know each other.

Indeed, Lawson and my parents continued their lovefest, while I glowed seeing that the man with whom I was falling in love had such an appealed so fully to my parents.  I wasn’t surprised – I knew already how much my brother Jefferson loved him – but I was nevertheless reassured.

The Blossom event was no ordinary concert.  It was Beverly Sills!  Lawson wore a shirt that pictured Seurat’s painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,” and I wore a flowing dress from the Arab Market in Jerusalem.  He held my arm as we floated through the hills surrounding the Blossom pavilion, listening to Sills’s spectacular soprano.

***

Cleveland, Ohio

Sunday, August 21, 1977

Lawson was scheduled at the lab Sunday evening, so he needed to leave early to allow for bad luck hitching.  Right after breakfast I drove him to the Eddy Road on-ramp to I-90 heading west.  Our parting kiss – neither our first nor our last – was remarkable because of how lost I felt in his embrace.  I was no longer aware of my physical environment or my physical being.

At the same time, I felt connected.  At home.  United.  I felt found.

***

Mackinaw City, Michigan

Friday, September 2, 1977

Case Western Reserve Medical School has a great curriculum and schedule.  First and second year students learn in blocks that integrate the basic science, anatomy, physiology, pathology, and clinical components for each organ system.  Students attend classes 8 am to noon six days a week, and have afternoons available for lab (especially dissection), clinical assignments, electives, jobs (☹), and of course: studying.

My parents lent me their car for the weekend, and I left Cleveland at approximately 12:01 to drive to Canada, with 3 chilly cans of Tab to keep me awake on the 7-or-so hour trip.  Lawson had decided that it would be more fun for me to meet his parents at their summer place in Canada rather than Cincinnati.  His mother, lady par excellence, sent me a handwritten invitation, so the visit would be Completely Above Board.

I drove straight across Ohio to Michigan, then straight north to the Mackinaw City, where Lawson awaited me.  He was sitting on the sidewalk in front of the designated bookstore, reading a child’s book on astronomy.  He had hitched from Campedor, passing Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, St. Ignace, and the breathtaking Mackinac Straits that link Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.

The setting sunlight illuminated Lawson and created a glow around him, just as his inner warmth had shown a shimmering when I met him at Cleveland’s Public Square, a mere two weeks earlier.  And the weekend together would further burnish his radiance.

***

To be continued…

[1] I’m sure I didn’t use Mark O’Donnell’s alternative, “the Best Erection in the Section.”

 

[2] My grandfather, Howard M Wells, took seriously his duties as the officiating minister for Lawson’s and my wedding.   The only lesson I remember from his obligatory premarital counseling is, “Marriages are not made in the bedroom.  They’re made over the dining room table.”

[3] Blossom Music Center is Cleveland’s outdoor performance venue, where acres of picnic grounds augment the seating capacity of the roofed pavilion.

Cincinnati 8/28/18

Hitchhiking from Estes Park, Colorado (where I had been a volunteer at Rocky Mountain National Park) to Palo Alto, California (where my college roommate Sarah Webster lived) inspired one of the few songs I’ve ever written.  Hats off to Nevada, August 1972.  (And everything off in Nevada!)

Goin’ Through Nevada

The road’s so straight, I feel like goin’ 90 miles an hour.
The air’s so thick, the furnace burns.  And I desire a shower.
But home is slack; tonight is black, I pass up each Ramada.
Coyotes stare, my chest is bare, while goin’ through Nevada!

Nevada, who are you?  Why do you capture me?
In sun-bright, moon-light, tumbleweed air,
With Carvel stands
And mines of tin
And old bandstands
And angel wind
None understands Nevada.

***
Each ride I get, I thank my thumb, no lift it ever squanders.
Another trip, a hope, a dream; my soul, my spirit wanders.
My mind’s so free, it wails like wind, from poetry to Dada.
Coyotes stare, my chest is bare, while goin’ through Nevada!

Nevada, who are you?  Why do you capture me?
In sun-bright, moon-light, tumbleweed air,
With Carvel stands
And mines of tin
And old bandstands
And angel wind
None understands Nevada.

***
The stud’s so white, he’s out-a-sight, and I can’t stop lookin’.
He leans my way, then bumps his hips, and I know what’s cookin’.
I listen low, I wait my turn, I’ll never tell my Mama.
Coyotes stare, my chest is bare, while goin’ through Nevada!

Nevada, who are you?  Why do you capture me?
In sun-bright, moon-light, tumbleweed air,
With Carvel stands
And mines of tin
And old bandstands
And angel wind
None understands Nevada.

***
They’ll never know what books I’ve read nor purity in merit.
I’ll never tell just who I am, or what I will inherit,
For now I’m dry, I never cry, I won’t wear my pajamas.
Coyotes stare, my chest is bare, while goin’ through Nevada!

Nevada, who are you?  Why do you capture me?
In sun-bright, moon-light, tumbleweed air,
With Carvel stands
And mines of tin
And old bandstands
And angel wind
None understands Nevada.

***

2018-08-26 Cincinnati

Happy Anniversary Part 7

***

Our Romance Part II: Courtship, beginning 19 August 1977

***

Norton House Suite 1A

11443 Juniper Road

Cleveland, Ohio

August 20, 1977

Lawson awoke first, and let himself out to explore the neighborhood.  He returned, having propped the doors open with his shoes, and climbed onto my bed murmuring the names of nearby streets, Juniper, Mistletoe, Marigold, Hazel, Magnolia, Bellflower…

“You live in a garden!” he exclaimed.

***

Lawson wanted to read aloud to me.  He produced from his backpack a well-worn copy of my favorite book, Loren Eiseley’s The Immense Journey.

***

My life had been in muted color, a toned-down version of the rainbow’s delights, definitely better than black and white, but not much.  I was seeing everything in vibrant, vivid color.

***

The suite’s bathroom opened into my bedroom.  I happened to be in bed when it came time for Lawson to take a dump (Lawson has always been very regular in the defecation department).  Lawson merely entered the bathroom, dropped trou, sat on the toilet, and kept on talking.

Are we all ok here?

***

And lest I think he was anything but fully content with his genitals, Lawson had me check out his epididymis that first morning!  As I recall, he had had some swelling on the left side of his scrotum,[1] and his doctor had examined him and done some tests and ruled out epididymitis, and sure enough whatever it was vanished as quickly as it had come.  I felt his epididymis, and it felt ok to me.  (What did I know?)

It was an unusual way to be introduced to what would become the source of private intercourse, intimate exploration, and exquisite pleasure over the next 41 (at least) years.

To be continued…

[1] My attraction to Lawson’s scrotum led me to call it something that expressed its paradoxical combination of power and delicacy.  I renamed it “abilia,” almost an anagram of labia, its embryologic counterpart in the female anatomy.  The woman’s labia majora and labia minora, like the male scrotum, are simultaneously forceful and gentle.

2018-08-25 Cincinnati

Happy Anniversary Part 6

***

Our Romance Part II: Courtship, beginning 19 August 1977

***

August 19, 1977

Lawson had planned to leave work early – he was a research assistant in a lab at UC – by 2:00, 3 at the latest, and hitchhike to Cleveland in time for a late dinner, depending on his luck with rides.  (Nowadays, the length of a trip depends “on traffic,” not on the magnanimity of drivers’ hearts.)

As it turned out, he had pretty good luck.  He made the 260-mile trip in about 6 hours, calling me from the Terminal Tower around 9 pm.  I was calm heading to Public Square to pick him up.  I drove my parents’ pea-green Dodge Dart, 3-on-the-tree, one of the cheapest cars you could buy in the mid-70s.  You might think I would be giddy with anticipation, but I was Very Much In Control.

How did I do it?  How did I keep from being ga-ga over Lawson Wulsin, Dreamboat & mountain man, Poet and do-gooder, Scientist and philosopher, about to arrive and spend the weekend with me?  I kept imagining him as a mini-Mac Jameson type.  Maxwell Jameson (the III), was a classmate in med school.  He was a few years older, because he had volunteered for the Peace Corps in Niger after college (Princeton) and before med school.  Mac was tall and good-looking, athletic and obviously smart, nice and thoughtful, and why wouldn’t I have a crush on him?

Because he was Dull as a Doornail.  Dishwater dull.  Oh, he could talk about African politics, and rowing on the Olympic crew team, and he could even host our frequent potlucks at his apartment occasionally and play James Taylor on his stereo.  But he was devoid of fire.  Maybe he had never been challenged.  He seemed like a life-sized cardboard cutout of a Mr. Perfect – white, preppy, all the requirements checked.  Safe – check.  Predictable – check.  Handsome – check.  Interesting – no check.  Someone I would fall for?  Never.

So I kept channeling “Mac” as I thought about Lawson hitching north, as I made French onion soup and baked banana nut bread.  I remembered our conversations over the past 6 years and pretended they had not been remarkable, pretended they were merely sophomoric grandstanding (“Be here now,” for god sakes).  I tried thinking of Lawson as “Rules’ Fool,” a concept that became a poem to a would-be lover, decades later.  Would he step-out?  Mac wouldn’t.  Duh.  Would he “look on tempests and be never shaken?”  Mac wouldn’t.  Duh.  Would he take a chance?  Mac wouldn’t.  Duh.  Why should Lawson?

***

Lawson was sunshine.  On a gritty Cleveland street, he radiated warmth, gold, purity, joy, animal heat and magnetism.  He wore crimson bell-bottoms and a yellow and orange Hawaiian shirt that complemented his amber twinkling eyes and his messy blond mane and his red beard – his barba rosa.  As I pulled up to the curb, this very-real-man haloed by a shimmering haze, smiled and started towards me.  His form was indistinct, his outlines blurry.  He was enveloped in a cloud of energy – a rosy solar areola.  Lawson’s radiance is the most real sense of “aura” that I have ever experienced.

Lawson’s aura is of genuine, wholesome, and whole-hearted goodness, with rays of visionary idealism, insight, imagination, pushing the envelope, and fomenting fun.  He was not a ball of fire.  More like a whole sun, tiny, and surprisingly safe, considering its proximity.  A sun, radiating adventure and curiosity, loyalty and love, strength and vulnerability.

I drove us to Juniper Road where I worked as the Resident Advisor for the undergraduates living in Norton House.  School hadn’t started yet, so we had the whole dorm to ourselves.

We ate my French onion soup and homemade bread and chocolate chip cookies for dessert.  We drank his Liebfraumilch with ice, the bottle having considerably warmed on its trip north.  We showed each other pictures of our trips to Africa.  But mostly, we just talked and talked.  We talked until our throats were raw, and it was past 2 a.m. and we needed to sleep.

Still not equating sharing a bed with sex, I invited Lawson to sleep with me in the double bed in my bedroom/study.  As he hesitated, I told him the daybed in the kitchen/ dining room/ living room was already made up and he could sleep there.

“Vicky,” he looked me straight in the eye, his arms encircling my waist, “I love you.  I am sure.  And that makes me want to be careful – full-of-care – for you and with you.  I want to take care of you.  That means that tonight I sleep in the living room.”

His kiss convinced me of his love and his caringness.  This was no rejection.  This was pacing.  We had time.  We were beyond time.  We can sleep separately.  Joy had already infiltrated the walls, and the floor’s cracks, and the very air we shared, as well as my hair and clothes and skin and pores.  I was oozing fire too.

Stephen Jay Gould thought that “the anticipation of happiness is the pinnacle of happiness.”  In our individual beds, both Lawson and I anticipated, glowed, peaked.  As they say in Japan of happy sleeping, “We slept like mud.”

***

To be continued…

Cincinnati

August 25, 2018

Steve read this poem at the opening of the Mark O’Donnell Theater at The Actors Fund Arts Center in Brooklyn last October.  Its magic inspired me to write The Mighty O (posted on my blog ~ August 22, 2018).

X

“The Letter X” The letter X, for explicit sex, for the ghastly formula, the buried treasure, the missing number, the undisclosed measure, the crossroads, the crossed heart, the cross, the illiterate signature, the inferior brand name, the typing over mistakes, the inebriate’s eyeball or the fish-market fish’s, the incorrect answer, the life-saving stitch, the whirlybird, the anonymous grave, the secret plan, the forbidden planet, the unknown man, the number ten, multiplication, shorthand for Christ and all that’s hidden, the target the bomb misses, the poison bottle, the liquor keg, the divorced, the former, the past, and at the last, at the end of the letter, written, perhaps unbidden kisses. –Mark O’Donnell

2018-08-23 Cincinnati

Happy Anniversary Part 5

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Our Romance Part I: Un-courtship: February 1971 to 18 August 1977

(continued from 2018-08-22)

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July 31, 1977 – Aug 18, 1977

I spent my first night back in North America at my aunt’s and uncle’s house in Mendham, NJ.  Of my dozens of friends and relatives to write, whom did I choose?  Lawson Wulsin.  Yep, I finally answered the 8-page letter he had sent before he went to Cameroon.  I sincerely thought I was merely seeking sympathy from someone who might also understand the culture shock that wasn’t at all what I expected culture shock to be (disdain at the conspicuous consumption of Americans, guilt about my own material excesses, anger at the ubiquitous social, racial, and economic injustice, confusion about how to rectify injustice and promote collaboration, etc etc etc).

The culture shock of that night was the first, but not the last, time that my overseas adventures failed to impress my parents or others.  I was so focused on my own experiences and changes and growth, I didn’t recognize that others had had their own unique experiences and changes and growth.

Lawson was back in Cincinnati, and responded to my letter with an invitation for us to get together.  He offered to hitchhike to Cleveland to see me!

He wrote that he would bring stories and pictures from Cameroon, a bottle of Liebfraumilch (a reference to the wine we shared at his apartment in 1975), and “a little something else.”

(Mom told me later that when Dad read Lawson’s card, he told her, “Lawson better keep his ‘little something else’ in his pants.”)

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Our Romance Part II: Courtship

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August 19, 1977

 

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To be continued…