Sense of Place

Pyramid Building and Friend....rcw

We live in a fantastic part of San Francisco!  Seriously, Russian Hill/North Beach is kind of the best of the best....near enough to get anywhere and close enough to everything is one point, but the other is the real "melting pot" aspect of the place.

Chinatown to the left, Little Italy to the right, and all the old Beat/Bohemian landmarks sprinkled in between the two.

Sam Wo's Chinese restaurant, with it's entrance through the kitchen and incredible staircase leading diners up to various floors filled with old wooden tables and stools....Trieste Cafe with it's patrons and their animated conversations carrying on both inside and outside....frothy coffee, thick pastry and poetry....there's just so much Here here, I have no desire to live anywhere else!

When I was working 24/7 at the Co-Op, I didn't have the time to appreciate my surroundings.  For years, people would come to visit and I didn't know the first thing about our neck of the woods.  It's embarrassing to say that, but very true.  I think a lot of us suffer that same thing; too busy to see the world around us.

These past couple of years, give or take the first several months spent in "reclusive recovery," I've taken full advantage of time and have started taking walks, becoming familiar with my surroundings....and falling in love.
No, not with another person!  No one could ever replace Jack!  I've fallen in love with my neighborhood....massively, unabashedly and totally in love with everything from the church bells and cable cars to the many different sounds, exotic aromas and dialects that are offered during a walkabout.

I'm eternally grateful to Gary, our dear friend and Co-Op co-founder, for helping secure our living arrangements.  Bless him and may he rest in peace....such a dear friend!

So for today, Fifty Five is the New Sense of Place, a sense of being home and belonging to a community, and considering North Beach history, I fit in pretty good!

Eighteen

In 1973 I was in my senior year of high school, anxious to get out and begin my creative career. What that meant at the time, I wasn't exactly sure but it had something to do with writing and music. Aside from math, everything was relatively fine at school.

Transferring to public school had been traumatic, but ultimately a good thing.  I had a great deal of catching-up to do, because the public school language classes, social studies and history were far more advanced than what had been taught at my previous alma mater. But once my roster was adjusted to more appropriate courses I was actually starting to achieve some positive grades.  Especially when I was finally allowed to take some art and writing classes.

Ever since early childhood I, like my siblings, displayed natural talents.  These included drawing, writing and music. My folks saw these talents as hobbies with little to no potential for earning a living. I'm not going to bad-mouth my parents; they didn't know any better. They were children of the Great Depression and saw us as needing job skills not entertainment value. Personally,  I believe a child's natural talents should be encouraged if the child shows interest in developing them. 

I had to fight for the chance to take a art class and a creative writing class, but once those battles were won I was a happy, engaged student. I expanded my creativity through as many means possible, from drama class and extra curricular activities to painting a mural.

And, believe it or not, this ugly duckling actually got a serious boyfriend. I'd had a few excursions of the boy-girl kind including one very serious relationship that got me out on the road for a few weeks, but up 'til around 1972 I wasn't interested in any of the boys in school.  They were just not my cup of tea. But once creativity was permitted free reign, I opened up to all the things life had to offer. I began making friends.

A bunch of us students from Folk Club and chorus got together in the music room one afternoon and formed a band called "Fully Cooked Meatloaf." Why? Because that's what was on the lunch menu that day, naturally.

Ed, my future boyfriend, decided he'd play drums, his present paramour played jazz fiddle, one of my bunch played piano and me and another played guitars. When not strumming strings, I was strutting my stuff as lead vocals a la Janis Joplin/Bessie Smith...even getting up on the piano and rolling around.

I had no shame and had a long time love of performing..

A couple of rebels, circa 1972

We didn't play much for the student body, but we had a lot of fun. And gradually, as chemistry would have it, I hit it off with our drummer. We began seeing one another on the sly. Well, one thing led to another and an other and another and whammo! I got pregnant.

In 1973 things were still pretty backwards in my neck of the woods. What neighbors thought carried a lot of weight, and being pregnant was a weight that was hard to hide. I wanted to keep my baby so didn't tell anyone other than the father of course. I was hoping to get through graduation and out on my own before my accelerating maternal figure presented itself.

Ed was supportive throughout. Poor thing, he was in his Junior year, hoping for college. He went and got a job after school and together we began considering our next move.

In the meantime there was my prom and graduation to deal with.

I was a nervous wreck! Morning sickness, heartburn, all the usual pregnancy pleasantries...they were all mine. But I hid them well, thanks in part to my mom taking on part time work and also to the fashion industry who chose that moment to push the "smock" look....this made everyone look pregnant! Talk about luck! A few years earlier, I'd have been outed by Twiggy's "half starved teen" look.

Well, to make a long story short, we tried to make it work. I got a job after graduation at a factory and together we saved up.  I even got a lease on a studio apartment in downtown Philadelphia, but it all fell through when my job laid me off due to my "advanced condition." After that, it wasn't long before our carefully laid, house-of-cards plans fell to ruins.

By that time I was six and a half months along....desperate to keep my baby, not sure what to do.  As the options fell to the wayside (running away wasn't going to work, I needed prenatal care-stat!), we came to the realization that it was Time To Tell Mom.

I practiced on my brother and his new wife, who then accompanied us back to the family home and The Conversation.  Mom was ironing when we got there...looking back it seems like she was always ironing when something was major going on.

To her credit, Mom didn't kill us....I know she wanted to.  She yelled, cried, asked questions....Questions and answers filled the air, along with tears and more questions....some were comical, probably due to shock..."How?" (This was one of the few times my "wise-assed nature" kept to itself, although I distinctly remember the snappy come-back sitting on the edge of my tongue.)

Next Mom sent my boyfriend home to talk with his parents....I'm not sure how it all happened but over the next two days all the parents met and talked about our future and the pending baby's fate.  Well, all the parents did at any rate.  Ed and I were there but were referred to as if not even in the room.... unless we chimed in with our own ideas. Then we were addressed directly, curtly.  Nobody wanted to hear any of our ideas....none of ours ended with adoption.

Ed's parents were concerned about how this was going to effect  his college aspirations.  My folks were concerned about what the neighbors and other family members might think.

And as for us....as for the baby's father and I?  We wanted our child. We even talked about sneaking off to get married but we never got the chance.

A couple of days after the Parents' Conference, Mom said we had to talk to the priest, who insisted that my boyfriend and I weren't bad people we'd just gotten caught up in "a moment of passion, a moment of weakness."  Passion? yep. You bet your ass!  Weakness?  nope.  Wasn't anything weak in what we did to get me in that condition.

But I digress.

Shortly after our talk with the priest, I was secretly whisked away to the local maternity home to wait out the remainder of my pregnancy.  For the days leading up to my home for wayward girls installation, I was kept hidden in the house...not permitted to go in and out of the front door...told not to even answer the door lest the neighbors find out. The day before my departure, my parents, Ed, me and my belly and the dog went to a park a few towns away and tried to have a "normal" family outing.

Looking back, I can only call it an exercise in denial of the highest caliber. We walked and talked about the leaves crunching under our feet, about the dog chasing his ball, about the weather, about Mom's job, about the sun, the moon and the stars....about everything but what was right in front of us.  I'd already been instructed not to make things more difficult.  

My parents decision was firm in their minds. Adoption was the "best way....the only way."  I disagreed, vehemently but it did no good.  I prayed for the world to end, at least my life to end, but that didn't happen either.   The next morning I woke, showered, dressed and went down the back stairs toward my destiny.
St. Vincent's Maternity Home.  I may have seemed submissive on the ride there, and even during the registration, but in my mind  and heart I swore I'd fight to keep my baby.  I even had the notion that my folks might change their mind once they took a little time to think things through. Talk about blind hope!


The experiences in the home were okay....I didn't like that the housemother kept talking adoption and let them all know how I felt. They respected my wishes, which was a nice change after being treated like an nonentity for weeks.  I took natural childbirth classes, determined to experience everything without being numbed or drugged.

I decided to make the best of my time by learning to crochet, brushing up on typing skills, and taking natural childbirth classes, even writing for the newsletter. It was an interesting setting, this "home for wayward girls."  They weren't actually calling it that by then, but the place was still wrapped in that stigma.

In some ways we were "wayward,"  playing poker for match sticks, sneaking tokes of pot at a nearby park, smuggling pizza from the "outside" for movie night when the house mother wasn't looking. Oh, we had our moments!

I made a few friends on the "inside," including one who later was bridesmaid at my wedding.  All this friend making and sharing real names was contrary to St. Vincent's policy, but our crew didn't exactly go out of our way to follow the rules.

When I first got there, the place was fairly full.   A lot of the "girls" had been there a while already, many of them quite literally HUGE withchild.  My own belly grew large too.  But everyone thought I'd not deliver until after the holidays.  My secret prayer was that either the world would end before I gave birth or that a miracle would happen that I could keep my baby.

 On December 9th, Ed came by the maternity home and we went for a ride to a park where we walked around and talked about the holidays.  We grabbed a couple slices of pizza for dinner before parting company for the night.

We pause here for a word about pregnancy cravings.
Mine were simple.  Pizza with lots of pepperoni or bread with mustard.  Philly soft pretzels did nicely too. Ice cream and pickles never happened and besides, been there/done that anyway years before on a dare. By the way, dill chips work well with butter pecan.   Sweet dill pickle relish on the other hand goes pretty well with just about everything....especially as a banana split topping.  And don't forget the pineapples.

All that being said, my pregnancy was going along fine...even better now that there was regular prenatal care. I'd learned to listen to my body and how to walk, sit, stand up and lay down in whole new ways.
All day, while Ed and I walked among the leaves, little cramps were coming and going but I didn't think anything of it.  Before going out earlier, I asked the staff nurse about the cramps and she assured me these were just "practice" contractions.  So we didn't worry.  We had a nice day and I got back to St. V's on time, slightly tired but otherwise okay.

When I got up to the residence floor, the place was bristling with excitement.  One of the girls had already gone over to the hospital in full labor and another was looking to be heading that way as well.
The evening nurse looked at the calendar and sighed, "No wonder!  It's a full moon!  I wouldn't be surprised if a few more of you go over before the night is out." 

Almost as soon as those words left her lips, the car was called again.  This girl was really peculating! Her water broke and everything!  We all wished her well, reminded her to come back and show us her new figure then settled back into our various routines.

I went to the t.v. room and decided to sit in the recliner.  Please note: recliners and pregnant women, especially short pregnant women, should NOT travel in the same circles.  I knew this before even taking the chair, but still...."The Graduate" was playing on t.v. (edited, of course), and there wasn't another seat to be had.   So I sat, like one would in a regular chair...figuring that would be safe enough.

Then I made the fateful mistake of allowing the recliner to recline and just as suddenly I got the urge to go to the bathroom.   Sheeesh!  Talk about crazy!  I was stuck in the chair, too short and too pregnant to operate the controls!  And I had to pee!  The whole thing struck me as really funny, so in between embarrassed giggles I asked for help.  A few of the other women came over and together, between peals of laughter, we got me out of that chair.  It was hysterical!

I made it to the bathroom. There I sat. Nothing happened.  "Here I sit all broken hearted....." I thought, then got up to get ready for bed....but got a huge, giant, GIANT cramp that sent me to my knees.

I breathed through the pain like they taught us in the classes. When it ended I cried.  "No, please...not yet.  Please let me have my baby with me.  At least through the holidays."  I thought maybe it was just another "practice" contraction until another one hit just a few moments later.  This one was worse. Way worse, and all the other early stages of labor things started happening.  I breathed through it all, clenching my fists tightly to keep from screaming.  Although looking back, screaming may have been appropriate.

Somehow I got down the hallway. My room mate was already in bed, fast and snoringly asleep.  My thought was to lay down for a while and see what happened next, but I never got that far.  The next contraction hit like a cannon ball to my middle. It was incredible. I collapsed to my knees,  panting and trying to call out to my room mate. I shouted several times. Nothing. That girl could sleep through an atomic explosion.

Another contraction. Pant...Pant....Blow.  I called to her, loudly.  She kept snoring.

After the contraction ended, I managed to stand next to her bed and was bending to shake her when I barfed.....all over her! That's what finally woke her up. 

I tried for a "sorry about that,"  but was interrupted mid-apology by yet another contraction.  Luckily my room mate knew what to do.  While I stayed put she quickly hopped out of bed and got the housemother who took one look at me and the barf, then the barf and me again and said "Looks like you're going over.  I'll call for the car."

As we were leaving for the hospital another girl joined us, apparently also heavy in labor.   Full moon, eh? I'm a believer!  The nurse called my parents. The girls tried to call Ed to let him know what was going on, but he didn't get the message until the next morning.  But he came rushing to the hospital as soon as he found out.

My son, David Christopher, was born at 2:30 a.m. on December 10, 1973 after what was described as a quick but intense labor performed without anesthesia....just a lot of breathing, sweating, shaking and pushing.   He looked perfect and pink, his opened eyes looking right at me when I called for them to bring him to me.  I let it be known that I would be doing all the motherly things while in the hospital, and didn't accept anyone's argument that I was only hurting myself.  Who were they kidding? 

So I met my son....I named him....David Christopher.  Beloved Bearing Christ.

That first visit lasted over an hour. I was in heaven. I fed my Beloved...counted his fingers and toes, checked every inch....got to know his smell,  his voice, his eyes.....  His little fingers curled around mine....his impatient cry when the bottle wasn't working right....every move, snort, fart, gurgle....everything was etched into my mind and heart, put in places where they would be remembered because....because.....because tomorrow always comes.

The social services people came to me with papers.  I didn't to sign them.  I did fill out the birth certificate.  David Christopher Price.   Mom, Dad and Aunt Virg visited.  I walked with them down to the nursery.  "He's beautiful," they said.  "Yes."

Ed visited every day in between school and work.
For five days the only things I thought about were the times I could be with my child.  The nursery staff knew what was going on and let me spend extra time with my Beloved.  They let me visit with him down in the nursery in the wee hours of the morning when most everyone else was asleep.  

I hardly slept that week....but hey! Sleep wasn't going to do me any good at the time, and I didn't need much any way. I knew in my gut that David was not going to leave the hospital with me. Oh, I played the denial game, did it real well too.  But by the time Friday came around I knew there was no hope of bringing my baby home.

My Mom, Aunt Virg and Ed came to pick me up.  I demanded to see David one last time. Someone found a little room and sent me in there, my Aunt insisted that Ed join me.  Bless you, Aunt Virg. Together we held our Beloved for the very last time.  It was beyond painful, beyond tragic....beyond anything I could have ever imagined up to that point.  We held each other with the baby between us, our tears baptizing his little forehead with prayers for a good life and a thousand other things.

All too soon they came to take him to the foster home.  I felt my soul being dragged from me as they took David Christopher from our arms.  I kissed him once more and promised that someday we'd find one another....then he was gone.  Whisked away.  Like it never happened.  I was permitted to stop by St. Vincents to show the girls my now flat belly. Everyone was glad to hear my baby was healthy. Nobody asked where he was. They all knew.  Many of them and their children would share the same fate.

Once back at my family home, I was expected to get back into the routine....Christmas was right around the corner and there was lots to do.   I was a good little robot during the day; operating on autopilot helping with decorating, gifts, cooking....whatever!  But at night I didn't sleep because of the dreams.  I wasn't allowed to talk about the baby or anything....just had to keep it all to myself, like it never happened.  But it did. And I never forgot, never denied and always believed that we'd meet again some day.

This was not an easy blog entry to write.  I am not going to accuse my parents of being heartless or anything like that....they did what they thought was the best thing.  They considered adoption "the best way....the only way." 

I didn't agree...but had no choice in the matter.

Somehow everybody survived....I went crazy for a while but found my way back after about ten or twelve years.  And that baby from back in 1973 grew into a very good, intelligent man who looked for and found his birthparents.  I'll never forget seeing his face that first time after so many years....he looked just like his father and I....amazingly so!

Even though there's a lot of pain in this story, I don't consider it to be a negative experience. Difficult? Yes. Outrageously so! But there were some good things, too. After all, I did experience childbirth.  Some of my other relatives can't have kids.  And Mark's adoptive parents and family had the chance for a lifetime of joy and a family legacy.

But even more important, to me at any rate, is that Mark is part of my life....not just some imagined phantom son that nobody talks about, he's there and real and everybody knows about him.  And we know his family, too. 

So for today, Fifty Five Is The New Eighteen....a year of many changes, challenges and building blocks for future miracles.

25 or 6 to 4

This is Thursday's actual entry...the one before was actually for Wednesday, but I didn't get to it 'til after midnight.

Today, Fifty-Five is more than the title of a song by the group Chicago. It's about-well....

By February of my 25th year, I had been married, recently divorced and was heading to California on a Greyhound Bus. Diane was traveling with me, apparently she didn't have anything in common with our former neck of the woods, either.

That's not to say the place was bad...East Coast Philadelphia Suburbs can be very beautiful! In the spring and summer there were lush, green tree-lined streets, little row housed enclaves and bigger houses made from local quarry stones. In autumn the trees shown in a multitude of colors as the leaves shed their green through all the colors of the rainbow. In winter the place was covered with snow, until traffic had its way with it.

Beautiful.

But I didn't belong there. Neither did Diane. We were two rebels, artists, liberated women in a place where most girls left home by getting married and most guys worked at the local so-and-so or went to college and worked part time at the local so-and-so until they graduated and opened up their own so-and-so, or inherited one from a somebody or another.

Well, I'd followed local protocol for the feminine of the species; got married to a great guy and set up housekeeping. We visited the families, had our share of parties with friends, and tried to make a go of it. Our gatherings were legendary. During the summers we held the annual Beggar's Banquet, friends came from all over the place....we ate, we drank, we jammed.

We were great at throwing parties, but when it came to the marriage there's only one way to say it; point blank, I was crazy.

No gory details needed for now, suffice to say that it was better all the way around that we went our separate ways. He survived Hurricane Me and went on to be a productive member of society.

We've stayed in touch off and on through the years and are on friendly terms to this day. Our birthson is in his thirties and we've been blessed with not only getting to meet him and his family, but to have an ongoing relationship. But I digress.

After we broke up, Diane and I (we'd met a few years earlier) became room mates. We planned to go to California once we had enough money saved.

Now, I'd wanted to go to California for a long time...since puppyhood just about. One of my high school friends had moved to San Francisco and enticed us out for a visit. Once there we were hooked. It's scenery, multi-cultural experiences and people resonated with us like "back east" never could. These people KNEW about things like hot and spicy food, instant happenings, corners to sing on...and had a great assortment of it all to choose from! Sure, they had those things in Philly, but it was different...just not my flavor.

We came back from California and started saving up every extra penny. Rents back home, back in the day, were a heck of a lot cheaper than San Francisco. We kind of knew that. But the true level of sticker shock awaited us when we hit The City (never "Frisco").

Several things contrived to make our departure swift and unceremonious. Most extractions are. Suffice to say we left after selling everything at a frantic pace...the only things we carried were in 2 matching sets of Fingerhut luggage, a very large back pack and a guitar in its case. Funny story about the Fingerhut luggage....we ordered one set for each of us. Time was getting close for our departure and we needed that luggage so I called the company and complained. Next thing I knew we not only got our original order, but two other orders as well!

We called the company but they didn't know what to tell us. According to them we got our one shipment and that was it. Okay....fine. Only what were we going to do with the extra sets? As it turned out they made great Christmas gifts for a couple of friends who were also going on a trip! Ahh, the art of re-gifting!

Anyway, the night of our departure, my parents insisted we eat dinner with them, then drove us to the bus station. I knew they were upset. I knew they thought I was crazy...and I knew they were right. But I knew that California was my destiny. It was the only thing I was sure of at the moment. I was going to either make it or break it out there. Diane, I felt sure, would be okay even if I ended up weaving baskets somewhere.

My dad bet we'd be home in six months. That's all I needed to hear to remove any vestiges of doubt. No way was I going to be the one to pay on that wager!

Mom and Dad objected all the way up to the ticket booth, then insisted on paying for traveler's insurance.

When the bus engine rumbled to life I turned to my parents and looked at them, knowing it would be a while before seeing them again. They looked smaller than I'd ever seen them. I felt a pang of guilt, certain this was killing my mother. Did any of me want to call the whole thing off, say "Stop it, no! I don't wanna!" ?

No.

Not in the "I have reservations" sense. Admittedly, I felt homesick even before the bus pulled out. We got our seats and waved to the folks 'til they were long out of sight. I knew mom was crying, I went into the bus's chemically smelling bathroom and cried too.

I felt bad for hurting my parents, for being such a unique kid and for growing up into such a confusing/confused adult...but I did not feel bad for moving to California. In truth, I believe to this day that doing so saved my life.

Meanwhile back at the bus, I looked in the mirror and made a mental note to remember the moment. (At the time this was a greater feat than one would think) "Well," I said to the dimly lit reflection, "no turning back now."

What brings me to this Fifty-Five feeling today is life and energy and taking leaps of faith then sticking around long enough to enjoy the ride all the way to its conclusion...be it Butch and Sundance or Thelma and Louise.

That's what Fifty-Five is for me today...Fifty-Five is the New 25 or 6 to 4...the end of an era, the beginning of something new and the roll of a dice.

.001

I didn't know quite what to say about Fifty-Five on Wednesday, March 3, 2010. The day started out okay, had some errands...felt tired but accomplished when we got back home. I thought of writing in the Blog, but felt no inspiration.
So, where does one go with that?
What can be said for the brick wall, the blank page?

I know! For today, Fifty-Five can be the New .001 as in "Not quite there, but workin' on it!" Because that's how it feels, to me, today. Simple, elegant and oh, so true!

Fourteen

Nineteen sixty-nine was a strange turn of events...Woodstock promised a generation of peace, but the Tate-LaBianca murders let it be known that all was not Flower Power in Hippiedom.

At fourteen, I watched as my generation went through its baptism of fire. Oh, we'd had Civil Rights and Peace rallies, even had an experience or two with overzealous cops...couple of dogs...got my head clunked a time or two.

On the heels of the Summer of Love, they threw the "Death Of Hippy" on October 6, 1967 in San Francisco but it took a few years for everyone else to catch on. Most people didn't even know that Haight/Ashbury had exorcised itself until way after the fact.

By 1969 many of us had been committed to the Peace and Civil Rights movements for quite some time. We were tired of having our collective-based community parodied in comedy sketches as unwashed, unshaven bums.

Sure, there were still Be-Ins. San Francisco wasn't alone in this. Ditto Greenwich Village, New York. We had them in Philly too...Belmont Plateau hosted many an afternoon of cavorting amid clouds of cannabis. In that regard, we still knew how to throw a party...but by time 1969 came along, the Flower Tribe had officially lost its cherry.

I had a dream about all this last night and woke with a sense of melancholy. There's a lot of that time period I miss to this day; the music, the sense that we were part of a tribe, the belief that we had the power to change the world. These things stood out amid the clouds of incense and peppermint, parody and partying.

The innocence that was able to exist in those few, brief moments before the fall was a universal thing that reverberates to this day, as is evident in the many changes that have occurred since then.

For today, to me Fifty Five will be the New Fourteen, because I was a hippy then and am still one now!

At Ninety-Three the Possibilities Are Endless

A long, long time ago in a place far, far away my dear friend Diane and I knew a fascinating woman. She was every bit alive and agile at ninety-three as anyone would want to be, attending political and social functions with all the vim and vigor of a woman half her age.

We'd met her through another friend, Stephen, who had this habit of introducing us to marvelous people. Anyway, she'd sit there sipping her Instant International flavored coffee, demurely dunking her Pepperidge Farm cookies into the steaming cup before making comment on the latest bit of local shenanigans.

Seeing her in action made me want to grow up to be an old woman...one with spunk and fire. I want to be at least ninety-three, still rocking to Freebird and raising hell when it needs being raised.

So for the future, for now...for Rocking On! Fifty-Five is the new Ninety-Three-and watch out, folks...I'm packing a Harley!

Anniversary Waltz

Two years ago, if tomorrow was February 29th, the Co-Op would be closing.  But since it happened during a leap year, I can only see that actual date every four years. The rest of the time, I can only look at a date that isn't there...other than those misty once-in-a-whiles, like Brigadoon.

My heart still aches for what is gone.....for the sake of the patients, the community and even for myself.  The Co-Op was special, very special.  In fact, it really had no business being in existence at all - started by penniless patients who had a dream. 

Boo Boo's Bargain Basement Band w/ Kitty at 350

But that's how these things happen...the things that have no reason for being, but are.  Like the bumble bee...no earthly reason why it should be able to fly, but it does.

I don't question the reasons for the Co-op's existence...it was to help patients, and it was also to help demonstrate a principle, the principle of Compassionate Community Care.  And for all its faults, I think it accomplished that goal.

So for today, I'm going to think about the San Francisco Patients' Cooperative and all those who helped make it go, and all those who came there to be together...and I'm going to celebrate in my own little way.

And for today, Fifty Five Is The New Anniversary Waltz....happy anniversary SFPC, your spirit will never die.