THE OTHER SIDE OF EDEN: LIFE WITH JOHN STEINBECK

The impulse to believe the absurd when presented with the unknowable is called religion. Whether this is wise or unwise is the domain of doctrine. Once you understand someone's doctrine, you understand their rationale for believing the absurd. At that point, it may no longer seem absurd. You can get to both sides of this conondrum from here.

Re: THE OTHER SIDE OF EDEN: LIFE WITH JOHN STEINBECK

Postby admin » Fri Mar 18, 2016 7:58 pm

37. Last Straw

NANCY


John missed his plane; he had stopped for a drink in the Phoenix airport bar. Frantic, Thom called from JFK. I had to laugh. After years of mocking my consternation, he was getting a bitter dose of John's irresponsibility.

Four blackout days late, Johnny fell off the plane into his brother's arms. I heard about fisticuffs in the taxi. Someone's glasses were broken again, as Cain and Abel set off for the farm in upstate New York. When things settled down a few days later, in their drunken grandiosity they created Steinbeck Films, a production company, to develop their father's works. When John called to crow, I greeted their little wet dream with barely veiled cynicism. A batch of linen letterhead was all that ever came out of that scheme. Up to their old tricks, they were making the rounds of producers, getting their feet in the door with their name, and then getting the boot when the straight guys figured out they were all hat and no cattle. I wondered how they would ever grow up if they made careers out of being their father's sons?

John called often, in non compos blackout, repeatedly telling me how they dazzled people with their magic and power. His subtext was imbedded with chastisement because I failed to be impressed with the cultivation of his celebrity image. I knew he couldn't even board a plane on time, and he resented that. In his convoluted mind, my mistrust was holding him back from soaring to the heights of his potential. When I wasn't bored by their tomfoolery, I felt anger and disgust. I struggled to focus on myself, trying not to drown in terror because John was drinking, learning not to react like a scalded cat. It wasn't easy work. Who am I if I'm not focused on his high-wire act?

The night before he was scheduled to fly home, John called at 4:00 A.M. from the Gramercy Park Hotel. "Four guys with knives just mugged me. They stole $500 and my driver's license. I need you to wire me some money in the morning."

Afraid he had been in mortal danger, my heart raced. However, intuition guided my response. "You probably spent it on drugs. I'm not sending a dime. Ask all those people who are so impressed with your power and magic for a loan."

Alcoholics have an uncanny way of knowing exactly when their enablers are about to detach. The next morning, John called with the proverbial ''I've hit bottom in a New York hotel room, drunk and penniless." Bewildered by my cool refusal to get hooked into the mugging drama, he was casting about for the habitual tension that strung my net under his balancing act. Expecting the usual pleas for vows of self-redemption, he was ready to strike some phoney Ronald Colman pose, eyes fixed on the far horizon of movie deals. This time, he heard only silence as I let go. Shocked by my detachment, I could tell from the awkward stillness that he felt cornered and panicked. This was not the girl he had married.

When I met his plane, I saw a look in his eyes that said all the unspoken words it would take him another year to voice. I don't know how you put up with me. I am sorry I put you through this misery. I am not the man I want to be, for myself, for you, for the children. You are the only person who really knows me. You are my only source of sanity. Please give me just a little more time to shed this burden. Thank you for meeting my plane. Thank you for loving me.

My heart melted. In that look, he laid bare his struggle with the disease, with Thom's influence, with his unwillingness to practice the steps that could lead him out of the abyss. Sensing the end was near, I had to decide if I could witness it.

Upon his return to Sedona, John quickly established yet another sober honeymoon phase. He suggested we move to La Jolla. If any movie deals came through, we would be close to Hollywood. I could get the degree required for work in a treatment center at UCSD. We had been spending far too much time running interference between Megan and the deplorable drug scene at her boarding school, where the students got their dope UPS'd in from their dealers and were always dropping acid. She was uncomfortable in that environment and eager to leave. Michael's needs were simple. He just wanted to surf. We were all in accord, and I was delighted to be able to return to my native California.

We found a beautiful two-story ocean-view home on a cliff in La Jolla Farms. With four bedrooms and two offices, there was plenty of space to work on ourselves. The master bedroom had a secluded deck with a panoramic view of the coastline, surrounded by palms that seemed particularly auspicious. Nine years prior, I had a vision on the shores of Lake Louise. The frozen water and snowy banks melted into a turquoise ocean fringed with swaying palm trees. John and the children were joyously frolicking in the water. Perhaps the healing that I had been praying for would happen here. Sadly, thoughts like that never lasted more than a few, fleeting seconds. I was convinced the marriage was doomed.

I made it through the next six months with the help of kind friends and Al-Anon. Moving to a new city with two teenagers and a husband who soon relapsed again, while trying to establish a different direction for my own life, was torture. I was determined to save myself and any other family member who could join in my quest for serenity. When I talked to Johnny about my fears, he'd say, ''I'm not afraid we won't make it. Love is never the problem. The fear is that I won't make it."

We traveled from Sedona to La Jolla in a caravan, across the smoldering desert, in three cars holding two teenagers, two cats, and two very confused adults. Somehow, we managed to stay cheerful against incredible obstacles, simultaneously filled with dread and prayers of hope. Megan's car blew a radiator in El Centro, but Johnny and I only saw it as one of those crazy signs that velcro'd our souls. As children, El Centro epitomized the armpit of hell, the worst part of every family vacation, propelled by eccentric mothers who found a deep resonance in the desert. It held memories of orange-painted motel rooms with creaking ceiling fans, the acrid taste of burlap water bags hanging from car emblems, miles of dead scenery, and boring silence. Johnny told us a terrifying childhood story of wandering into Death Valley with Grandmother and Gwyn. Tanked on gin fizzes, they ran out of gasoline on the blistering road.

We were at the mercy of a huge Mexican mechanic named Nacho who came to our hotel at sunset and swore on the Virgin that he'd have us back on the road by morning. While John helped him, I took the kids across the border to Calexico for a taste of street tacos and border-town charm. As John and I fell asleep, we giggled at the cosmic coincidence we shared about the childhood trips to the desert. Those memories, intensely burnished in our psyches, were part of a twinspeak that never failed to amaze us. Were we the only people on earth who tasted sadness in blueberries and candied violets? The stiff little faces buried in our mothers' fur stoles, with the glossy beaded eyes, made us both feel claustrophobic. Certain shades of green were stifling, like a canvas awning baking in the sunlight. We believed our childhoods were enchanted by the same fairy godmother. Inextricably linked by a gossamer web, she was helping us valiantly master the archetypal tests of spinning flax into gold or kissing frogs in order to reveal our beloved.

We clung to each other that night in El Centro, praying our childhood fairies would rescue us. Scared of the impending darkness, we knew we were losing our way. Somewhere out there, a witch was warming her oven for us. A giant was grinding his ax and striding toward us in seven-league boots. I dreamed a leper was lying between us in our bed, his skull exposed through rotting flesh. In that dream, and when I awoke, I saw disease dripping from the ceiling.

Once we were settled in La Jolla, I began to hunt for therapists. The children would need help adjusting to their new schools, and John was willing to go back to couples counseling. Although San Diego County has enormous resources for recovery, back then the therapeutic community was caught in black and white categorizations that did not fit us. Beyond the obvious enmeshment, we were two highly creative, hot-blooded, strong-willed individuals, desperately trying to sustain a family unit. The first woman therapist claimed my childhood wounds caused me to confuse John's bizarre behavior with love. Another woman told me I should dump John because he'd never get sober and he was just wasting our time. I sensed unresolved issues in each one, along with condescension toward me and a groupie mentality about the Steinbeck name. The next one, who wrote a popular recovery book and worked with Betty Ford, told me if John ever got sober, I should stay away from him for two years, to see if he really meant it. Who comes up with these theories? If I'd listened to her, I would have missed the best years of my life and deprived the children of witnessing their father's recovery.

I wasn't looking for support to stay in my marriage. Nevertheless, I needed to hear more than "My dear, you're so sick you wouldn't know a healthy relationship if it came up and bit you." Wasn't it the sorry bite of our disintegration that sent me to their doors? A doctor would never claim that you are too sick to know you've got the flu. I decided these women were driven by sadistic greed. By telling me how messed up I was, they could string me out for years and get paid for the abuse.

I was down to the wire. Desperately wanting to move past my rage at the disease that was killing my family, I didn't need any more opinions. I needed cheerleading from someone who would nurture me through the necessary and impending breakdown, someone who would work gently with my ambivalence instead of trying to convince me that I should leave my husband in the dust, with the veneer of anger and arrogance that belies the underlying heartbreak.

"Just get on with your life and find a healthy man," they'd trumpet, as if that were so bloody easy. Just say, I'm so much better off after dumping that son of a bitch. They ignored the torture of watching a husband caught in a self-imposed trap, chewing his leg off. Who could help me come to terms with the fact that John was choosing death over freedom? Harboring anger toward men and the disease, none of those women had sustained an intimate relationship. Blind leading blindness. Where was one who had heart?

Eventually I found one in Dr. Peter McDade, who became Michael's therapist. He listened to the grief and pain of all the family members, and when he met John, he understood the dilemma we were facing.

"When he's sober, John is one of the kindest, most sensitive, coolest guys I've ever seen. He adores you and the children. No wonder you all love him so much." He conveyed a genuine empathy for our predicament, without judgment. Instead of telling me how sick I was, he congratulated me on my clarity and perseverance. I've often wondered if Peter could afford such generosity simply because he was a man. Women can be so competitive and bitchy.

On one of our last nights together, John and I walked along the dusty, darkened freeway across the Tijuana border. As moonlight carved the outline of distant mountains, we were flooded with the familiar rush of entering a Third World country. It was like the first time I heard Janis Joplin sing "freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose," or Dylan's "just to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free." Nothing ever compared to things like a simple border crossing with John. The earth's raw magnetism blended with his intoxicating magic. We didn't say a word. Holding hands, a moonlit glance said it all.

When we had to run across the freeway, I sensed danger. I didn't know dozens of people had been struck by oncoming cars on that stretch. John was exhilarated when we got to the other side, but I was still apprehensive.

"We made it, didn't we?" he laughed.

We're getting too old for the razor's edge. I don't want to live like this anymore. I love myself too much to endanger my life by flirting with death.

I listened with mixed emotions as John declared, "I'm so glad that after all these years, you haven't lost your spontaneity. You are still so exciting."

I remembered my guy friends in college voted me the Most Game Girl, the one you'd want to hop a freight train with. Twenty years later, I hadn't lost my spirit. Nevertheless, I was no longer attracted to licking honey from the razor's edge. My animus was changing. Whereas John's outrageous sense of adventure once mirrored mine, now I was more interested in creative and spiritual challenges. I wanted to accomplish something tangible. I sensed a seismic shift deep in my psyche as the bells of doom clanged wildly around us.

That night's border crossing severed my enmeshment. John's greatest fear had always been that I would outgrow him. I left him there, beside the freeway, emotionally and spiritually. The last fairy filament was cut. John was aligned with self-sabotage because feeling good about himself was so foreign. He was choosing defeat; I wanted victory.

A week later, after seeing Thom for "business" in LA, John returned home drunk. Wearily, I asked him to leave the house. When he refused, I went out to dinner with an Al-Anon friend. I returned to find him lying on the couch, the children tangled in his feet. I saw in their eyes. Here comes Mom, uptight as usual. She just doesn't understand us. She spoils all the fun. Later, I learned John had smoked marijuana with them. When I saw the look, I knew I had to cut his toxicity out of our lives or the kids would go down with him.

The next time John went to LA, I got a restraining order. When he called to tell me he was coming home, I said the words I had rehearsed for seven years. "You can't come within 100 yards of the house or I'll have you arrested. I'm filing for divorce. I will not watch you kill yourself. Your drinking has destroyed the sacredness of our marriage. I'm not playing anymore."

If I spoke to him on the phone after that, or let him enter the house, the restraining order would be invalidated, so I hung up quickly. No longer vacillating, I was not open to seductive reconciliations. I believed time would eventually bring me a better quality of life. Even if it felt like death, I was willing to do that time.

I enrolled in the rehab credential program at the University of California, which was conveniently close to the house. That simple act restored my self-confidence and esteem. I met other people who wanted to heal in those classes, and their support sustained me through the separation. Filing for divorce was the next step. My lawyers were concerned that I would be financially responsible for the consequences of John's drunk driving and his burgeoning debts.

Suddenly a single mother of two teenagers in a new town, with no close friends, I began to cultivate a support group of classmates and Al-Anon friends. Anytime I felt shaky, I'd pick up the phone. The long-distance bill to Boulder was enormous. Ignoring the restraining order, John called incessantly. My lawyer took him to court for harassment. Then he wrote daily, pleading for reconciliation. When that didn't succeed, he resorted to cruelty and rejection. ''I'm tired of trying to be healthy. You're not going to tell me how to live."

I made a list of all the rotten things he'd ever done. Whenever I missed him, I read it. In my shock and grief, I went over the litany of events until I could absorb the reality. I kept a reminder taped to my desk and near the kitchen sink. "At times, John stayed sober and seemed to grow in health with us. Now he is powerless over alcohol and his life has become unmanageable. He seeks drunken camaraderie with Thom because Sick Picks Sick. Michael and Megan and I will continue to recover."

Grief was not the only texture. If the best revenge is living well, I accomplished that. I found solace in my beautiful home, walking my private trail down the cliffs to the secluded beach below. I especially enjoyed the psychiatric classes at UCSD. My teachers and peers were interested in what I had to contribute and I was maintaining an A average. The kids and I got along much better without John's triangulation. When I look back, it was John's attempt to label me as the mean mommy that broke me. It is so boring being seen as a punitive mother by a man with whom you have been passionately in love. He hated his own mother. How can you expect him to support motherhood when he's drinking? The man would try to undermine a snake when he's in that state.

Often I was seized by a debilitating fear that John was lying dead in some gutter. I had no idea how close it came to that. He was making rambling late-night calls to our friends, beseeching them to convince me to lift the restraining order. He mistakenly saw it as punitive, whereas to me it was a life raft.

The time of greatest stress is always in letting go. I felt as if my limbs had been amputated. My skeleton caved in to protect my broken heart. Nevertheless, a sense of timeless security came from the familiar sights and sounds of my childhood, the ocean's soothing pulse, the smell of eucalyptus, and crunch of ice plant. I loved La Jolla's spectacular beaches and elegant homes. My bed faced the curving northern coastline, toward Los Angeles. At night I would look at the twinkling lights, wondering if Johnny were even alive. I said the Serenity Prayer like a mantra, like counting sheep, to quell my nightmares. Maybe he'd been knifed in the back behind some liquor store. Robbed while sleeping in his car. After he got sober, John always prayed passionately during AA meetings when they take a minute of silence for those who are still "out there." Grateful for the grace that finally descended upon him, he knew of no lonelier spot on earth. It was to that spot that I sent my love and prayers every night before I fell asleep. Why are you giving in to the disease? Where did all your goodness go? You always wanted me to think of you as a stand-up guy. You've become a coward. Why are you letting this tragic flaw conquer you? It breaks my heart that we can't be together.

The words he'd whispered hundreds of times echoed in my heart. If it weren't for you, I'd be dead from boredom. You are the only person I can really talk to. Why were we losing each other? Who were we becoming?
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Re: THE OTHER SIDE OF EDEN: LIFE WITH JOHN STEINBECK

Postby admin » Fri Mar 18, 2016 7:58 pm

38. Pentimento

NANCY


When the dust settled, the simplicity of my life amazed me. I felt a sense of pride for the way I was handling our separation. I was now financially independent. For the first time since living with John's extravagant overspending, my budget was manageable and our life was peaceful. Megan and Michael were adjusting to their new schools. Our grades were excellent, we were making new friends, and we were all in therapy.

In October, the Boulder house sold and we flew back to supervise the movers. Hoping to exert a final measure of control over me, John had a lawyer draw up an order that I couldn't remove his things from the house. My lawyer responded by claiming I would throw the antiques in the street if the order were not withdrawn.

Although I burst into tears upon entering our soon-to-be-dismantled home, I ruthlessly went through the house as the movers marked HIS and HERS. My friends gathered at a half wake/half celebration as we watched all the Steinbeck memorabilia being carted away. When the house was emptied, I went back for the last time to say good-bye. Standing in the driveway, I faced all the years of cop cars, ambulances, Buddhist guards, parties, and overdoses. I swore that would be the last place John would ever turn into a charnel ground. He would never again make our home a scary place, where depression and thoughts of suicide sat like stains on a ceiling.

That night, one of the Buddhist children was killed in a car crash while driving drunk. The son of a New Age prophet, his family was devastated. It was a ghastly reminder for those of us who were struggling with alcohol and drug abuse in our families. As the community ridiculed us for being silly, uptight teetotalers, we were fighting for our children's lives. The amount of alcohol consumed at the funeral dismayed us, as did the fact that it was offered to the boy's teenage friends. Would these adults ever get the message, even when it screamed in their faces?

In the raw, traditional Tibetan style, community members sat in the shrine room with the bruised corpse. The death deeply effected Megan and Michael; they had grown up with the young man. This tragedy came hard on the heels of the discovery that Kier, another childhood friend, had gotten AIDS from sleeping with the Regent. Kier had passed the HIV virus on to his girlfriend, who was the dead boy's stepsister.

Later, I spoke with recovering Buddhist friends about the ignorance we displayed as young parents, taking drugs around our babies. We had thought hallucinogens would bring enlightenment to the planet, not death and dismemberment. When reality hit, we faced the shadow side of our idylls. We were flower children and then we had children. We marveled at their purity and suddenly we were killing them with our addictions as the whole world turned black and crazy. In recovery, we traced the steps that brought us to the brink of destruction, determined that history would not repeat itself with a genocide of the innocent. Weathering the community's scorn, we educated our children about addictions. Now we were grateful about the simple fact that they were still alive.

Just before he died, that young man had asked, "Mom, you're always doing all these Buddhist practices and they don't make you happy. Why do you bother?" His profound observation fueled our conclusion that Buddhism could never address addictions as efficiently as the Twelve-Step program. Buddhist teachings may enlighten brains that aren't hardwired in the same way as addicts, but we needed something more. A two-thousand-year-old monastic tradition could not totally solve twentieth-century Western dilemmas.

When I called Dhyani for support that night, she said, "I have been concerned about that family for the past several years. Why didn't the recovering community confront their permissiveness? You need to call a meeting to discuss the guilt about not coming forth with your observations."

For the first time since Rinpoche's funeral, we gathered once again to mourn another alcohol-related death. As we went around the circle sharing our sorrow, we agreed to forgive ourselves. "I can no longer confront people who aren't ready to hear the truth," I said. "All I get back is abuse and ridicule. I am as powerless over that family as I am over my own husband. This is another example of how the disease, if left untreated, ends in insanity or death. I hate it." It was a sobering closure to our life in Boulder, and a strong message that in spite of the pain and loneliness, I had to stay focused on our recovery.

When I got back to La Jolla, John's lawyer started making noises about alimony from me. That's when I knew he had lost it. His creditors were calling daily. Then I met a woman at school who had heard about John's antics in Vietnam where she had been a journalist. Awestruck, she exclaimed, "Did you know your husband was a cult hero over there?"

"Oh, yeah? Well, I'm going to become my own cult hero!" I laughed.

We met at a seminar on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder attended by Vietnam vets, rape survivors, and police officers. The vets dominated every discussion, adamant that we civilians had never experienced the suffering they felt in the war. Now, John's vet buddies often gathered at our house after their support-group meetings at the Vet Center. I had seen Platoon with twenty of them, and listened as their feelings spilled out from the catharsis. I knew vet's issues firsthand. They had my complete sympathy. Nevertheless, when I heard them telling rape and incest survivors and a twenty-year-veteran Chicago cop that they had the handle on stress, I figured enough was enough.

"People in this room have seen horrendous things, without being in Vietnam. I've nearly been killed by my alcoholic husband. I'm an incest survivor. I've witnessed psychotic drug withdrawals, woken up to my husband firing his gun into the ceiling, and been threatened at knifepoint by him. You guys say I haven't suffered enough to know the stress you've been through? Give me a break. You can't compare pain; it's a waste of time. Don't try to make me feel guilty by claiming to have suffered more. Your attitude creates divisions and you're forcing sides right here in this room. Why can't we agree that as survivors of trauma, we all have Post Traumatic Stress Disorders in varying degrees? My vet husband wrote an article about PTSD and, as far as he was concerned, anyone who survived the sixties was traumatized. Why does this have to be reduced to some macho competition?"

Several vets got up and walked out, but I didn't care. I couldn't imagine anything more egotistical than to compete about pain. It reeked of the alcoholic's litany of accusations to their spouses. You don't understand me and what I've been through and if you did, you wouldn't give me such a hard time about my drinking. I was sick to death of being told I didn't understand some dysfunctional man who felt he had the right to assassinate my character in order to establish a sense of himself. As in war, their hard-line posturing erected walls and we were there to heal. A couple of the cops thanked me as I was leaving. They'd felt the same way, but they didn't feel like calling it.

Later that semester, I had a strong confrontation with a psychiatrist who taught classes in group therapy. There was something about his behavior, condescension, and misogyny that alarmed me. Three months later, he was sued by six women clients for sexual harassment and lost his license. My assertiveness was being honed, as well as my instincts for sick behavior.

At night, in my dreams, I sensed tremendous anger coming from John. Beneath his rage was terror. Surrounded with darkness and confusion, his batteries couldn't get their psychic charge from me. He was running on empty. Abandoned by his friends, he slept in his car for weeks so the police couldn't pick him up for drunk driving. "Only the thought of your love inspired me to hang on. Without your motivating force, if only to rebel against, my juice was gone, " he told me later. Ironically, he never saw Thom, who disdained his brother's antics when I wasn't around.

In spite of the manageability of my life, most of the time I felt joyless. In withdrawal from abusive characters, I worked constantly at trying to love myself, nurture my inner child, and find out exactly what it was that I needed from moment to moment. It was rich and fascinating at times, and often just plain boring and lonely. That stage of recovery is manual labor.

Paul drove a truck filled with our things to La Jolla just before Thanksgiving. I spent a bizarre holiday unpacking the pieces of my marriage to John and placing them around the new house, while my ex-husband cooked the turkey. I felt so depressed, I wanted to die, remembering previous holidays, our house filled with twenty-five friends, Johnny's signature chestnut stuffing, and the lovely sense of celebration our family always managed to create.

It was no surprise when John's call woke me late that night. Compared to the travesty of his childhood holidays, the sanctity of our lighthearted festivities had been deeply healing for him. Risking a breach of the restraining order, I let him speak when I heard the despair in his voice.

"I didn't want to let the holiday pass without saying I love you. This is really hard," he said softly, with dignity.

"It's very hard. I know." That was all I'd allow. I didn't need to say more; it had been said zillions of times. If you quit drinking, with the way I've been working on myself, we could have a lifetime of fabulous holidays. I hadn't heard his voice in two months. In those few seconds, I could tell charm and a famous name and even booze weren't working any more. I quietly put down the receiver and wept with relief. He was still alive. I was still his touchstone.

A turning point came on the day I decorated the Christmas tree. Unwrapping the ornaments that had belonged to my mother and Gwyn, I celebrated a new richness and flow in my life, humming my favorite carols. Free from the bondage of brutal relationships, I had confronted each one with courage. As I congratulated myself, the phone rang and my life took a miraculous turn.

It was John. He was sober. "I don't want to spend Christmas without you and the kids. I miss you so much, I am willing to do anything to have you back in my life. I want to quit drinking and I don't know how. I know I need help. Can I see you? Will you help me?"

I needed to buy time. "Let me think about it. Call me later this afternoon."

I phoned several of my recovering girlfriends for a reality check. I was sure they'd groan and ask me if I'd lost my mind, but they all said I should give him a shot. "What if he really means it? You don't want to pass that chance by. If he doesn't, you can continue to separate from him."

When John called back, I agreed to see him. He was gentle with me, letting several days pass as we talked often by phone. He poured out his pain about the sabotage of his life, his ambition, his marriage, the relationship with his children, his dreams. "I don't want to lose everything, but I don't know what to do. I've had a series of dreams and visions about our marriage. We truly belong together. I need your friendship. I love you."

Without attaching to the outcome, I just listened. Powerlessness had become my ally. By scraping the bottom layer of my pain and anger, I had learned to trust my instincts, to know the truth from his con. If he only had lies to offer, then I would go back to my life without him. It was no longer a matter of what he could do to me, only what I allowed in my denial. He never mentioned Thom or the film company. He didn't try to dazzle. No grandiosity, no bullshit. As I sensed that the fruition of our separation contained a miraculous seed of unconditional love, I opened to him. And so, one night, when the kids were staying with friends, I let him come home.

The house was filled with flowers, candles, and delightful Christmas scents. I made a luscious curry; the ambience was cozy and luminous. I knew when he walked through the door and immersed himself in the warmth that his heart would burst. I loved creating an environment for John, like performance art, and he was the most appreciative audience. It made his lonely inner child feel safe, the way it longed to when his mother was breaking scotch bottles at his head. Never the saint, it was also a feisty way of saying Eat your heart out. This is the way we've been living while you've been in the gutter.

We sat together in front of the fire after dinner, more tender than that first night when the silver mermaid dress slid to the floor. I sensed the fear in him was gone, the underlying tendency toward fight or flight. There was nowhere to run, and it was no longer my mission in life to batter down his fortress walls.

"You know," he whispered as he took me in his arms, "we cannot escape our love for each other. We are joined at the hips, eyelashes, and fingernails."

That night, sitting by the fire, we sifted through the potsherds of our relationship to see what could be saved. For three months I had been forced to rely on myself, to trust my integrity. All that was left was reality, raw and lonely, yet filled with dignity.

"Johnny, the dream we share is still alive. I want to celebrate our love. It has withstood the test of my letting go. If I'm capable of that kind of love, then I'm ready to receive it in return. If you can't give it to me, I will find it elsewhere."

"Let me try," he begged. "I had a vision of a past life where I was a wild yogi and you were my spirit windhorse. During the day, you grazed outside my door. However, at night, we had fantastic adventures in other dimensions. You are the best Christmas present I could ever receive, through countless lifetimes."

When they returned the next afternoon, Michael and Megan were delighted to have their Poppy home for the holidays. Johnny was adorable; one of his favorite poses was papa lion. He'd lie on the couch and they'd sprawl around him, chatting about deep things and silly things, musing, giggling and clowning around. We'd make up words, or names for the cats. The littlest Abyssinian had one hundred nicknames. It would do something cute and one of us would come up with a new name, like Anapurrrna, Kitty Purrrn, Happy Talk, Speedbump, and Pumpkin Peanut Butter.

Johnny held it together admirably through New Year's. He had been reading AA's bible, The Big Book. Anxious to discuss the disease, he wanted to know what I was learning in school. Sometimes we went to meetings together. He liked the funky, blue-collar ones best; he identified with the down-and-out guys. I had a sense of him standing on the edge of a cliff, calmly looking over at the vast expanse below, poised between life and death. He knew it wasn't really in his hands. In some final grasp of reality, he had come to believe the disease was bigger than him.

After the holidays, John asked the abbot of the Vietnamese Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles if he could live there. I didn't question his decision; I didn't even give it much thought. He couldn't stay with us, and it was better than living in his car. The monastery is in Korea Town, surrounded by a ghetto mix of many cultures. The abbot, Tich Man Jack, nicknamed Tai, was very fond of John. He let him stay in a room right off the main shrine area. When John drank, he interrupted the services, so Tai moved him down to the basement. When I visited, Tai took me aside and complained, "He too noisy, and he stink. People ask me why I let him stay in monastery. I don't know, but I love him. You his wife. Why you no take him home?"

"Because he too noisy and he stink!" We laughed.

Johnny hung out with the monks, or else sealed himself in his room and drank, leaving only to buy more scotch at the corner liquor store. Whenever he tried to recreate the romance of life he'd found in Vietnam as a young man, the time warp would strangle him. Thankfully, he never bothered me with those delusions.

I loved to visit him there; it was a world completely removed from the surrounding environs of Korean grocers and Salvadoran restaurants. As the spiritual leader of many Vietnamese Buddhists, Tich Man Jack had created an island to maintain their culture. On Sundays, the children would gather after the services for their youth-group activities, while the grandmothers cooked lunch. Michael and Megan fit in with the ease of world travelers, delighted with the exotic yet familiar panoply of rituals. Entering the courtyard, we would light long, thick sticks of incense, wave them up and down three times in front of the huge Buddha statue, and bow, as we had done countless times with John, in Boulder, in Hong Kong, Thailand, and Kathmandu. After the congregation left, we loved to chat with Tai while eating oranges in the sun-filled shrine room. Death joined us then, watched patiently, and waited.

Johnny was always sober when we visited and in return, I was respectful. In Tai's world of Confucian order, I was supportive of John's attempts to join the monastic scene. I never told him what I really saw, the waste of a life, the inability to care for himself, to actualize the potential that began gathering twenty-five years ago on his Mekong fantasy island where he began his career of dying young with opium, heroin, and a vengeance. He felt safe enough in our detente to reveal his shame and embarrassment that it had all come down to this, from the flaming promise of a cult hero in Vietnam to a derelict living in an LA ghetto basement.

This was a man who was given the grace each day to stay alive. In the face of his ravaging disease, there was too much respect between us to play destructive games. He quietly allowed me to see the pain and confusion that fastened his self-imposed trap. No longer sealed in a veneer of bravado, he never hid his sorrow when I returned to my house on the cliff above the sea, a place full of light and sun and promise. His vulnerability touched me in places I'd never felt before. He wasn't asking for a handout or for me to clean up after him. He simply wanted my love. This was not Leaving Las Vegas; this was a man on the verge of death who wanted to live. He just couldn't figure out how.

When he was able to eat, the old nuns cooked for him. When they saw death around him, they watched his back. Without language, judgment, or curiosity, they were so gentle with us. We felt completely at home around them. Their minds were still and steady in the face of this bizarre scenario. Conversationally skilled at reflecting reality in silence, their presence was a thousand times more powerful than therapy. Everyone knew death was waiting. Sitting in that quiet hall of mirrors with those gentle people served to magnify the truth, whereas chatter would have created defenses and denial.

Surrounded by the many photographs placed lovingly on the ancestors' shrine, feeling John's tenderness and respect toward Tai and me, I was profoundly touched by each passing moment. John's picture is on that shrine now, amidst offerings of flowers, incense, and oranges, still life in filtered sunlight, as Tai watches over him from this earthly plane, completing the cosmic full circle.

John spent three sober weeks at my house after New Year's. Things were going too sweetly. In a grand finale, Thom was compelled to resurrect the Steinbeck curse. He landed on our doorstep with the usual hidden agenda. I objected, but John assured me no alcohol would be allowed in the house.

We spent a quiet evening. The next morning I came downstairs to find them both plastered. Heartbroken, but hardly surprised, I told Thom to leave immediately.

"We only drank in the garage," he said defiantly.

"You'll have to go, too," I announced to John. "You've broken our agreement."

I ran upstairs and called an Al-Anon friend, sobbing. How could I have set myself up so naively? Why can't John resist Thom?

"You know, if Johnny drinks anymore, he's going to be dead soon," I implored when Thom said good-bye.

"Well, we all have to go sometime!" he said gaily, in his mindless, pixilated insanity. He was not so philosophical after John's death. The loss of his brother nearly killed him.

Later, when we discussed the relapse, John pointed out the irony of the situation. "He wouldn't cross the street to see me when we were living a few miles apart in Los Angeles. He can't stand to see me sober and he feels threatened when I'm happy with you."

What Thom did not know was that whenever Johnny drank, spontaneous bruises broke out all over his legs, emblems of late-stage alcoholism that signal the end. We were staying at the Bonaventure in LA the first time I saw them, earlier that month. John was toweling off from a shower when I noticed seven glowering, purple splotches scattered all over his legs, the size of tarantulas and just as menacing. John looked at them with an amused detachment.

"You know what causes them?" he asked quietly.

"I forget."

"Alcohol affects circulation. When the system becomes toxic, blood vessels break near the surface of the skin. It's a sign that the cirrhotic liver is about to shrink, which is lethal and irreversible."

"Are you scared?"

"Shit, yes! I'm terrified. It's breaking down my denial. I've got to quit."

"You're not doing anything about your hemochromatosis, are you?" I asked for the first time in a year. "That's probably progressing at a merry rate."

"It will kill me, even if I quit drinking, unless I get back on my schedule of phlebotomies. I'm not facing that reality any better than I am my alcoholism." I wondered if Thom would have sabotaged John if he knew how close he was to death. As he sauntered off to his car, I felt his thoughts. No wonder John can't live with her. She's such an uptight bitch, always spoiling our fun. She's not going to control us. We'll show her. Little did he know how soon their games would end. And when it did, he forgot to blame the relentless progression of their disease. In his mind, he held only me accountable for the ravages brought on by their madness.

After I purged the house of their toxicity, I settled on the window seat, staring at the ocean, filled with dread and despair. I was the only person in John's life, among friends or family, who knew exactly how little time was left. The situation was bound to explode. I forgot how enabling it is to expect rational behavior from an alcoholic. Until John makes a commitment to abstinence, this will keep happening. I have to clear the deck to do more work on myself.

I did not know that John, angry and humiliated by the banishment, had stolen my bankcard just before he left the house. For the next month, he withdrew $400 from my checking account every day. My accountant never called it to my attention, thinking I knew. More than $10,000 later, I confronted John, who claimed to be broke.

"Where did the money go?"

"Hey, I've been in blackout for weeks. I bought some cheap furniture for my room and paid the phone bill."

"You're telling me you spent that amount of money in one month and you have nothing to show for it?"

Cocaine was the only explanation. This was the lowest he'd ever sunk. I kicked myself. I've been an idiot, thinking I could play with John about sobriety. I was dead wrong to think if I kept my boundaries, I wouldn't get burned. You can't play with a drunk. It's like tickling a sleeping tiger.

Johnny was chagrined. He apologized, concerned only that I still loved him. I noticed with amazement that my habitual level of fury and frustration had not been provoked. Poised on the razor's edge between death and recovery, we carefully measured each step in the grace period we'd extended to each other. I still loved him, but I knew what had to be done. Sell the antiques and file for divorce. I can no longer call this man "my husband" with pride.

Later, in his sobriety, we often shared the same unspoken train of thoughts, like a twin acid trip. A sense of synchronicity would cause us to marvel at the way our lives conjoined with the elegant precision of a well-crafted wristwatch. As we connected the dots that led us from confusion to wisdom, we understood the necessity of this last grisly pantomime. The pentimento of our mutual denial had to be scraped off by a lethal dose of reality.

I insisted that John pay me back the $10,000. "You stole that money from me, and I'm going to press charges if you don't."

I had often asked Thom and John what they wanted to do about the mounting bill for storing their antiques in Boulder. "Let them sell the whole lot," Thom declared. "I don't even want to think about it."

"I'll pay the storage bill and contact an auction house," I told John. "You take care of the authentication and sales. All I want is my money back."

I let him orchestrate the event. I did not want to be in the firing line if he or Thom ever sobered up enough to miss their beautiful possessions. I asked for a few of my favorite pieces to be shipped to me, making it clear that in doing so, I was rescuing them from the curious auction block. Since I was the only one who could afford the freight, John and Thom agreed they would be mine, no matter what happened between us. And so, the Chinese brush paintings, the Italian ceramic chandelier, the copper kettles, and Gwyn's Buddhas came to roost in my house. Johnny seemed relieved that a few of his favorite things would remain in the family.

The auction drew a flurry of media attention. Letters from Steinbeck to John and Thom were bought by collectors from all over the country, along with baby pictures, furniture, silver, and dishes. Thom never said a word. He knew it was either that or jail for John, which only served to solidify his resentment of me. I didn't try to spare them the pain of losing all that memorabilia. It made me sad, because they had so little of their birthright to begin with, but I couldn't rescue them anymore. It was a blood sacrifice for each of us. Unmanageability comes in many forms, and when it does, all you hear is going, going, gone.

"Looks like bottom to me," John said one night on the phone from the Temple. "Got any ideas where I should go for treatment this time?"

"What's different about your situation that makes treatment worth going to? You've already been twice."

"I was sitting here, wondering why I can't quit drinking. I picked up The Big Book and something hit me like a Zen koan. I can't stop because I'm an alcoholic! I can't quit on my own."

I had started working as an intake rehab counselor at Scripps Hospital's posh McDonald Center. John would not have fared well among the Yuppie, uppity patients and follow-the- yellow-line rules. A friend recommended Azure Acres, a small treatment center in Northern California. Unlike most facilities, she claimed they had a laissez-faire attitude that encouraged taking responsibility as opposed to being herded into strict compliance. I had a feeling John would respond differently to being treated as an adult.

And so, in April of 1988, John began the long, arduous process of getting himself into treatment. It took nearly four weeks. He couldn't have done it without a struggle because that's the way he did everything back then. He had to win the internal dialogue with his disease. He had to face his fear of the unknown as well as the known, the murky depths that lay beneath the leap. He called often for support. I just let him ramble on, mulling over the pros and the cons, until the former outweighed the latter. The noose was getting tighter; Tai was making noises about kicking him out of the temple. On his way back from the liquor store one night, he was mugged. A few days later, he was arrested for his third DUI. It was time for the stand-up guy to take a stand.

"You want the best Mother's Day present you could ever imagine?"

"Sure!"

''I'm signing into Azure Acres tomorrow. Will you fly up there with me? I'm afraid I'll go into convulsions on the plane. It's down to the wire; if I don't drink a few ounces, I'll go into seizure. If I drink more than a few ounces, I'll go into congestive heart failure. That's how I spent last night, in the ER at Cedars Sinai. I nearly died. If I drink a few sips of beer every hour, it may be enough to keep me out of convulsions, but there's no guarantee."

I had to be strong. In the face of death, I could also afford to be generous. I wouldn't have missed that flight for the world.

''I'll take the train down to La Jolla and spend the night," he offered. "Get two tickets to San Francisco and we'll fly up in the morning."

I asked Thom to drive John down. "I'm afraid he'll go into convulsions on the train."

Thom refused. "Can't do it. I'm too busy. I'll drive him to the station and then he's all yours," he laughed, oblivious to the severity of the situation.

I shuddered. When Joanna, Thom's ex-girlfriend, was a teenager, she lost her mother in a similar attempt at sobriety. The mother had gone cold turkey, attended her first AA meeting, but went into convulsions and died as Joanna was knocking on a neighbor's door for help. I had witnessed several seizures at the hospital and knew exactly how deadly the situation could be.

There's a bar car on that train. I had no idea whether John would be alive when it pulled into the station. I took an AA friend along for support. We stood on the platform and watched the last passenger emerge. No sign of John. Has he drunk his way into a coma? Is he alive? Asleep? Passed out? I went home, curled up in a ball, and prayed. An hour later, Johnny called from the San Diego station. He'd fallen asleep. One day at a time. One minute at a time. One second at a time. That's all I have to get through. Tomorrow he'll be at Azure Acres and I can relax. Please God, let it go easy for us. He needs a treatment center with a medically supervised detox, like Scripps. But he won't get well there, and this is his last chance. He's got to risk going into convulsions on this flight. He's got to court death one more time. I have to let him do it his way; I cannot fight him on this decision.

Sober and jovial, John insisted we celebrate Mother's Day with a lovely dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant in Old Town. Underneath his sweetness, as he turned all of his attention toward me, motherhood, and the children, I sensed his terror. It was much more about staying alive than staying sober.

In spite of the blade pressed against his jugular, we sailed through the flight to San Francisco and the drive to Sebastopol. Heartened by a feeling of optimism, the sparkling stream between us sang more sweetly than ever. As we approached Azure Acres, we were delighted to spy a gloriously auspicious rainbow floating above the redwood forest that surrounds it.

I stayed for lunch and could tell John felt immediately at home. The main building had been an old hunting lodge; the grounds were filled with nature spirits. The food was hearty and the patients looked surprisingly jovial. I was asked to attend their weekend family program in two weeks. As we hugged good-bye, I sensed John was entering the situation with a new meekness. I hoped that meant he would be receptive. Under the rainbow's end, we parted as the best of friends. We sensed the possibility that the depth of our love could still prove victorious. As I drove back to San Francisco, I felt the peculiar sense of detachment that comes from being forced to live fully in the present. One day at a time, one moment at a time, one second at a time ...
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Re: THE OTHER SIDE OF EDEN: LIFE WITH JOHN STEINBECK

Postby admin » Fri Mar 18, 2016 7:59 pm

39. The Two-Foot Drop

NANCY


The treatment program at Azure Acres connects patients with their feelings in an honest, direct, and loving way. John settled in comfortably with the colorful mix of blue-collar types and professionals. His counselor, Kate, lived with an old Buddhist friend of ours, so she understood John's spiritual belief system. He couldn't hide behind the stumbling block of translating AA into Buddhism.

They call one of their basic educational tools the Two-Foot Drop. "I am learning to get out of my head and listen to my heart," John explained. "Another thing I really like is the way they describe the disease as a sleeping tiger. You can't mess with it. It will wake up and bite you every time."

After John died, one of his counselors told me, "For an intellectual like John, it's hard to turn off the mind and start following the intuitive process. Something profound happened to him while he was here. More than anything else, he came to believe in a higher power. Very few people have that kind of experience while they're in for their first twenty-eight days. It wasn't John's first shot at treatment, so maybe that is why he could hear it. He was in a place in his disease and his life where he was open.

"We work a lot on reprogramming a person's inner belief system. John was at wit's end with himself and wanted to get control of his life. He questioned everything presented. At the same time, he was open to listening to somebody else. He would ask, 'Why does it work that way?' as though he were genuinely curious. Most chemically dependent people are searching for something all their lives. When you get sincere in that search, whatever problems you may have, the power greater than yourself opens up and I believe that is what happened for John.

"He spent the rest of his life seeking and enlarging on his understanding of his higher power. I was sad to hear he died, but then after I thought about it, it felt okay, because he died sober. That's what all alcoholics and drug addicts strive for. That is the ultimate outcome of recovery, that we die sober."

During the first week in treatment, John had to write a wreckage list of everything that happened to him or others due to his addictions.

There doesn't seem to be a way to fully answer this question. It would take as many years to complete as the years that I have been willful, believing that I had the power to manage my life. However, some things do stand out. I have wounded the people I love most both physically and emotionally. I have stolen money from my dear wife, arrogant with the knowledge that I could pay her back, but nevertheless not admitting the nature of the crime until I was caught. I wish I had been able to see my natural daughter, Blake, grow up; but I drank away the possibility of that situation happening by the time she was two. I have received three DUI's. I have introduced other people to chemicals that have served them no better than they served me. I have created blockages for myself and others by spreading cynicism as if it were THE intelligent approach to life. I have enabled fellow chemical dependents and codependents. In some sense, most of my wreckage has strewn a lovely garden with the nonbiodegradable manure of empty gestures. Many of my deeds have been socially inappropriate, and the wreckage has left a barren charnel ground, except for the love which is still in my life, from my wife, children, and friends.


While I was relieved to hear the depth of honesty in his amends, I didn't want John to rely on me for guidance through his recovery process. After a lifetime of living with alcoholics, studying the disease for a year, and now getting paid to work with them, I wanted him to find his own support system. "If we work our programs independently, then we can enjoy the serenity that will follow," I told him. Alcoholics are extraordinarily self-centered. There were times when he felt rejected because he was no longer the center of my universe. Although his counselors seemed hopeful, I wasn't totally convinced. I sensed he was still holding on to a corner of his disease.

My feelings were confirmed on the last weekend of the program. A friend of ours had come down from Los Angeles to teach a Buddhist seminar. We were having such fun, I decided to put off flying up north for another day.

"You said you'd be here the night before I get out," John pouted.

"Johnny, they won't allow us to see each other until tomorrow morning, anyway. What difference does it make?"

Like a child, he wanted to know that I was there for him, in that bleak motel room, with the sun beating down the windows. He panicked because he had lost his mommy; I was no longer waiting in the wings for his appearance in the spotlight of my codependence.

"My days of circumambulating the widow's walk are over. What are you going to do with all that frustration? Take a drink because I wouldn't obey your every whim? I'm having fun with Nina. Give me a break." By his reaction to that simple change of plans, I knew that John still had at least one more drink in him. Don't let any alcoholic tell you they're not controlling. They are freaks about it.

Rage hit me when I landed in San Francisco. Driving up to Azure Acres, I started boiling over. Who the hell does he think he is? I've stood by him for nine years and it's still not enough. Oh sure, he can make the most beautiful amends. He's a sponge, soaking up every ounce of love from me and screaming for more, like an abandoned baby. His disappointment that I favored the company of a friend to a night alone in a strange town caused me to suspect that once again, his participation in treatment was a farce.

***

He was leaning against a car, smoking, as I slid into the parking lot, spinning gravel. I saw the flicker of a sly little corner that held out for one more drink. I'm not going to hold back this anger. If I do, we'll both be lost. He's got to adjust to the changes we're both going through.

"How dare you treat me that way?" I hissed. "Are you jealous of our friends? If you think that's acceptable, you are no closer to sobriety today than when you came in here. You may have the counselors fooled, but I know you. You're a just few days away from your next drink.

"You tell everyone how sorry you are for how you've treated me. Yet you demand that I still play nursemaid. You've lost your option on manipulating and controlling me. I've been by your side, supporting your efforts during this month, not to mention the past nine years. You can't give me one lousy night of freedom. Your level of disappointment is way out of proportion to the reality of the situation and you can't even see it. I am not going to enable you by pretending this is rational behavior.

"I wanted you to say you don't ever want to see me stuck in a strange motel because of your disease. I wanted you to be glad that I was having fun with a girlfriend. Do you have any idea how lonely I've been for the past year? No, because it's always about you. I am sick of catering to your whims. If my focusing on my needs is so threatening to you, then I might as well just leave you here to figure out where you're going to live because I sure as hell won't wear your choke chain." I was so sick of his King Baby routine, I could have spit.

We found Mickey, a counselor, to mediate a sufficient detente so John could check out and get in the car. I'd love to make one of these suckers a bet that John relapses within days.

"This is a whole new ball game for both of us," I announced to Mickey. "He's lost the fawning wife who greets him with a brass band. We're done with the fanfare over John's attempts at sobriety. I have work to do, he has work to do, and the focus is off of him."

I turned to John. "If you can't live with that, I'm going home alone."

Noting his chagrin, and banking on the changes that had occurred during our separation, I took it to the limit. Now that I was a full-fledged therapist, John had developed a new respect for me. No longer the pitiful Al-Anon martyr who needed to get a life, I'd been accepted professionally into a world he was just beginning to master. Hired for my expertise on addictions, I worked with alcoholic patients, not their codependents. I had crossed the ubiquitous line of pride that many AA members draw between themselves and Al-Anons. Lately, I had heard him crow, "My wife is a counselor at Scripps McDonald Center." He was proud and a little in awe of my degree, of being hired by a top-notch treatment center, and for what he considered my Bodhisattva activity in trying to lessen the suffering of other sentient beings.

It was a crap shoot, but I played the hand well. Knowing I could see through him with X- ray vision, John rolled over like a puppy. In turn, I gave him one more shot. The victory of his sobriety may not have been won, but my personal goal had been realized. Working consistently to raise my self-esteem, both psychologically and professionally, I knew a time would come when I could hold my head high, turning my soap opera experience into on- the-job training about the disease. The pain I had suffered, combined with my education, had given me a special understanding about addictions that was met with respect and recognition. My job was a symbol of my inner work. It was an unyielding defense against John's abuse. Never again would this guy bite me like a rabid dog, pull a knife, lie, steal, or ridicule me. I had given up trying to change him. Instead, I changed myself. The payoff was golden.

John had signed a contract promising to attend at least one AA meeting a day and to find a male support system. That morning, I added another stipulation. ''I'm not going to be your sponsor, your therapist, or your only sober friend. I don't want to work the steps with you. I started that process four years ago and I did it on my own."

I had seen many enmeshed couples continue to isolate themselves in early sobriety. The alcoholic claims to be working the program, but soon starts missing meetings. He forgets to call AA buddies and soon relapses into denial about his responsibility for working a program. Then the spouse is blamed for dragging them down. Another mistake newly sober addicts make is to seek understanding from the opposite sex at meetings. In this disease understanding kills. Men need other guys to kick their ass, not sympathetic women with soft shoulders.

"I really think you should go to a halfway house for at least six months," Mickey told John. ''I'm not saying Nancy doesn't have a right to her feelings, but you need to be in a place of equanimity right now."

John insisted that he needed to come home. Given our style of leaning into adversity, we decided to give it a try. I went with my gut instinct, deciding I had nothing to lose. We spent several days in San Francisco enjoying quiet walks in Golden Gate Park, long exotic dinners, and AA meetings. Those days were filled with grace, celebration, and a burgeoning sense of gratitude that never left us.

Back in La Jolla, John attended one or two meetings every day for the first week. Then he decided to retrieve his car, which had died in the Temple parking lot. Thom picked him up at the train station in LA. I never bothered getting the story straight, something about a fight with the mechanic. I received the usual drunken phone call, in a tone of voice that told me it would take a miracle for him to escape their Cain and Abel labyrinth. All that rage was simply my intuition screaming that he wasn't ready to quit.

Realizing the need for a stronger support net, I consulted a psychiatrist named Gary Eaton.

"This is a matter of life and death," I told him. "I have a plan, but I need a professional reality check. If John should be in a halfway house, I would like to make arrangements for him to enter the best in the country. This is the last safety net I can provide him."

Gary did not waste time chastising me for what a lesser therapist could have considered enabling. He understood perfectly. "I can see how you would want help one more time, considering his health. You claim this will be the last thing you ever do for his sobriety. If you stick by that, I don't see it as enabling. If you don't, I'm going to call you on it."

I left his office knowing I had found a mature and responsible ally. Over the remaining years of John's life, Gary's expertise on the vicissitudes and joys of marriage greatly contributed to the pride with which we regarded our relationship.

When John called again, I gave him the names of several places that Gary had recommended. Once again, my task was to detach. The children and I struggled through Megan's high school graduation. We were tremendously disappointed that John couldn't be there for her. I held my head high during the dinner with Paul and his parents, but the psychic bond between John and me was sending out flares of desperation. I knew something was dreadfully wrong. Late that night, I called the Azure Acres hot line for solace.

"Nancy, have you tried to detach?" I was told.

"Only about seventy jillion times," I flung back at the woman on the other end of the line. I was sick of the glib slogans. Too drained to fight her simplistic condescension, I hung up the phone and cried myself to sleep. One day at a time, one minute, one second ...

The next day was my birthday. I celebrated quietly, not knowing that John had spent the night back at Cedars Sinai, in congestive heart failure and acute alcohol poisoning, closer to death than he'd ever been. When he came to, he called.

"I guess whatever research I needed to do has been completed. I'm sorry I missed the graduation and your birthday." In his inimitable style he said, "If you give me another chance, I can promise you a lifetime of birthdays we can share, because now it's also my sobriety birth date."

I laughed. "The reason I'm giving you another chance is that I can finally hear truth in your voice. But no way will I share my birthday with you. Either drink today or change it in your head. You're not stealing my thunder any more."

He chuckled at the audacity. And so, Johnny came home for three miraculous years, for better and rarely for worse until the day he died.
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Re: THE OTHER SIDE OF EDEN: LIFE WITH JOHN STEINBECK

Postby admin » Fri Mar 18, 2016 7:59 pm

40. The Receptor Site -- My Father's Grave

JOHN


So much time has since passed, but the sun shines even more brightly these days so I'm up early, outward at long last. After finally showing some kindness toward myself, my brain is beginning to heal. The wounds to the head and heart are reasonable and tolerable, though my mind has a stronger constitution than my body. Endorphines wave and drop by all the time now like old friends who have forgiven and put aside any estrangement that might have occurred due to an old quarrel over pain. Besides, the exact details have long been forgotten. Each new day has its own freshness, and its own solution. For no apparent reason at all, the stream of previously tangled thoughts present their own antidotes. Sometimes I even feel absolutely graceful treating my memories like fine Buddhist offerings of flowers and music. The goodness of equanimity sometimes now proceeds even wit, but still there seems to be the consistent invitation to try to understand what happened.

Churning through the past like a tramp freighter, I used to rummage around for insight, but the origin of my particular cargo remained a mystery to me. Fortunately, despite the enormous fear and the dreadful callousness that I had developed toward myself, I finally ran out of room and control. Grounding on bad chemistry and its diminishing returns when it came to manipulating my feelings, I suddenly experienced a genuine moment of clarity. Then I landed smack in the middle of my life and by God, it was OK. There was some spillage, but after flushing decades of analgesic support out of the system, when I could really taste the substance of me, I was surprised. I discovered that it was like molasses: rich, dark, and even sweet. Then I saw without any particular shame or embarrassment that it mingled with the deeper sap of my family. For the first time I was not so overcome by the kindred snake that kills by sight instead of bite. In fact it was never a snake at all; it was just a twig in the moonlight.

On October 5, 1989, I was driving as if floating through what my father used to call the pastures of Heaven. It is such a fine name for the rolling coastal land north of Santa Barbara through the Salinas Valley up to Santa Cruz. The ground is still and very dry now, compared to my father's time. In the fall, the lush green turns to ocher, but the easy, peaceful tone remains. Oak trees spot the landscape, soft insinuating emblems of tranquility. These lovely hills, so fixed in the memory of my people, swell and undulate like the waves of the Pacific Ocean that they border. Small ranches appear at the odd crest; naive impressions with simple fences running down like brooks. I think that this must have been a wonderful place to be a child, to have a pony, to love a dog, to skip stones with a frog in your pocket, and pull girls' pigtails.

That day was my daughter Blake's nineteenth birthday, and also the day when the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet finally won the Nobel Peace Prize. To me it was if he were given the keys to a kingdom that he already owned. I was filled with happiness.

Like a locust, I quite nonchalantly consume all events as being part of my story. So including my father's, I counted this reward as being the second Nobel Prize in my immediate family. And after all, Nancy and I were with His Holiness when he won it. The Dalai Lama is an example of much that I love, and my spiritual friend. I remain unfashionably Buddhist. I was a monk for a while myself before Blake was born in Vietnam, those long spiraling years ago.

As if pushed by a centripetal force, Nancy and I found ourselves driving north through Steinbeck Country on an otherwise leisurely mission to receive still more of the elevated teachings from the Dalai Lama in San Jose; hunting treasures, long buried and hidden in the mental continuum of the race. But this land, these pastures urged me to remember that despite my twenty-five years of acting out in an Asian kind of consciousness and devotion to an Indo-Tibetan lineage, my race, at least my event began with my parents.

As I got closer to the Monterey Peninsula and Santa Cruz, I began to feel somewhat teased. So many disparate spokes were converging at the hub of this wheel of time and family loyalties. Unlike Proust's cookie, this blitz of recollection seemed to be owing to Alfred Nobel's unique confection -- dynamite. The earth actually quaked six days later, and a familiar mechanism began to purr creating a daisy chain of facts and memories.

At once I was on a ziggurat of association spooling up Ariadne's thread in search of a way in and out of what felt like a labyrinth laid out with real purpose by my forebears.

Like deja vu, coincidence tickles the mind in a very special way. There is also a coy fallacy to coincidence, I think. When people like me feel a bit insecure, or they approach the death of cozy reference, or death itself for that matter, we need and take quick inspiration on the fly. Naturally anxious at such turns, we find cheap and vast resources of coincidence. It's always popular and mostly touted by people who always say with a sort of spiritual nudge and a wink, "I don't believe in coincidence," by way of implying divine intervention.

Since we are consistently getting mugged by the interconnected facts of life, coincidences measured by sheer amount are a dime a dozen. At random, order seems to abound. If you want something truly rare, find me something that isn't a coincidence. I'll sit up astounded.

Either way, it's a big thing for me, like a mental stutter. It makes me stop and take careful notice of the richness of projection. Also, there is comfort and something lyrically pleasing about the notion of coincidence. It soothes; it helps and reassures us that we are not disconnected from the world, even an awful world. They seem to rise and appear out of nowhere, though frankly I don't really believe in them. It's true that my mind lands like a drunken bug on these rosettes, but I also know that I am playing hopscotch on a rigged crossword puzzle. Most often, they are like good and sometimes expensive commercials in my handmade docudrama. But a big display, such as our ride through the Salinas Valley was turning out to be, is downright inspirational. It's as if these circuits were subcutaneously lodged in the tissue of the psyche. When the fuses are poked or prodded, a little army of coincidental lines radiates out like an immune system to ease or justify the pain of self-consciousness.

With little more than the touch of Narcissus, I catch myself jiggling the connections of my world. Interesting that my father had won the Nobel Prize in 1962 with Drs. Watson and Crick who had found and explained the structure of DNA; the mother code that carries her own hidden secrets; genetic secrets that wait like prophecy; garlands of emotion, genius, disease.

As I drive along in the car, I labor the point just a little bit more. It's a little like playing connect the dots. But of course it makes a very compelling picture. There is no special mystery here for me. After all, they're my dots. I put them there. Though like others, not letting the left hand know what the right hand creates, I sometimes may feign utter amazement at this harmonic convergence.

In its way, the whole thing could be a sad joke. But like acupuncture, this mosaic of pretense can sometimes bring relief from pain and disease without recourse to baroque denial.

Generally, my feeling has been that as long as you keep things in perspective and don't get airsick on "significance," one might as well get behind the little harmonies and take the raft merrily down a stream. Sure it's all empty stuff, but as the Chinese insist in referring to everything from Being to the hollow of a soup bowl, "Advantage may be had from whatever is there, but usefulness rises from whatever is not."

Since death and our ancestors tend to define some polarity, I have often noticed that sensations of coincidence are the psychic flotsam of charnel grounds. So at this point on the ride, more than just a little intrigued, yet not knowing whether or not the site was a common bead on a string of pearls or a jewel on a string of beads, I detoured for the second time since my daughter's birth to my father's grave in Salinas, California. Since by this time, I was already standing knee high in a field of homegrown free association, I felt a need and the freedom to communicate with my father about our life.

The last time I was here, I was frightened, or as I said to myself in those days, worried. In 1971 he had been dead for three years, and I had been drinking and drugging with a death- defying vengeance for at least six. Even by then at age twenty-five, I was already a really fine alcoholic and drug addict. I mean almost perfect, the best I could be. After all, I was in serious competition with my parents. Clean now, I wanted to receive some telegrams from home. I wanted to deliver some as well.

After exchanging a number of breaths with the space over the stones, I spoke to our memory. I had gone many places where my father had not. Independent of his rage or fears, I had cornered myself and was forced to face down many of my own. In this I had perhaps passed his mark. I needed to tell him that, here, where he couldn't bolt from me into his study, or die without saying good-bye.

I had always loved his light-handed way of delivering dramatic verse. I loved it that he could talk to us sometimes and be able to say at a picnic without so much as a blush, that he was "a rogue and peasant slave" and we should "sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the deaths of kings." It was a great gift, and now I, too, can summon up this remembrance of things past. Now, for me it's time to sing those old Celtic blues again, those "sic transit" songs that make you feel clean, even haplessly wise.

Sometimes it's horrible and eerie, but sometimes it's quite wonderful when you feel your parents move inside of you. The smile, the grimace, the quick flicker of another's mind in yours. That sort of thread is so strong and irresistible, and in its queer pull, it is the tie that faithfully binds the molecules of lineage.

So now, at last I find myself trying to bridge heaven and earth with Welsh-Irish dots, with words. Alone, with all my ancestors gone, my history is all important. At my father's grave, a cascade of discursive thought and private myths course through my head to splash around with new authority, while coincidences twinkle and glow like the bright little motes of light that run up and down kindling paper in the hearth when the paper has been exhausted nearly to ash.

Since I always think I'm a tough guy when I'm not, at my father's grave I tried to make sure to carry some cynicism as Dramamine for the vertigo of significance, and to beware the rapture of the deep. It never works.

At my father's grave I remember something that I learned as incontrovertible truth at a mentor's knee. Beyond the realms of opinion, and beyond the customary requirements of memory or nostalgia, or even resentment, two things are known to be true. Birds have nests, men have ancestors; and whatever thought rises from the heart will surely, safely, go to rest in the heart, forever.
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Re: THE OTHER SIDE OF EDEN: LIFE WITH JOHN STEINBECK

Postby admin » Fri Mar 18, 2016 8:00 pm

41. Larger Than Life

NANCY AND JOHN


In most families, loyalty is defined as faithfulness to a person, an idea, a secret, a duty. In John's case, loyalty to his family of origin was perpetuating the myth that his father was the larger-than-life hero of his fans. In his proposal for his autobiography, John wrote for the first time about his lifelong struggle to individuate from his father's legendary persona. He felt more free to express himself fully because he knew his words would not be read by the public, and for that reason, I believe he spoke more intimately here than he did in his manuscript.

***

The reasons for attempting to write this book are not particularly noble or profane. The motivation could be summed up simply by my desire to live free from fear. However, the path leading to that sort of fruition has, along its border, a lot of fearful things that at first glance can cause panic, or resentment, or shame. There is also charity and sanity, which accompany this sort of voyage like good dolphins on a good quest. Frankly, I feel blessed that these guiding elements have never abandoned me and, as I and others continue to recover from the effects of my actions, I am encouraged that these qualities will endure, even shine.

I inherited two life-threatening diseases from my parents. Due to hemochromatosis, a genetic iron-retention disease, and alcoholism, I developed cirrhosis by the time I was thirty-four. It took me multiple slips as an extreme "low-bottom" addict and a lot of enlightened treatment to get me into a condition where I had the clarity of mind to be able to receive AA's help at all. Despite my lifelong dedication to spiritual pursuits, intellect blocked the road to surrender. Fortunately, when I truly accepted my powerlessness over my disease, the drama was over, and I could begin to understand the source of some of the behaviors that had taken over my life, apart from the fact that I am just a plain old alcoholic/addict.

Perhaps it is long past time when I should have expressed many of the feelings that tug at me due to the special circumstances of being my father's son. However, timing is not the forte of Adult Children of Alcoholics. Conflicting notions of propriety conspire to keep family secrets closeted in "borrowed shame" no matter how crippling or even lethal this toxic situation might be. Of course, this unconscious policy of Pavlovian loyalty (which seems to be universal) is accentuated when one of the parents is world famous. But further, when this wheel of shame and neglect and secrecy is perpetuated and actively enforced by a powerful, self-serving parent figure, such as my stepmother, Elaine, it becomes a devastatingly corrosive routine of abuse which then skewers love and memory. It would be more than misleading if I did not acknowledge the anger which I now have the ability to feel. Previous to working the first three steps in AA, I was drowning in perpetual resentments. On realizing my innate powerlessness over people and things, I experience a clean anger that doesn't fester with the need for resolution. This is great stuff, and it allows me to be more or less grateful in impossible situations. Naturally situations come down my chute all the time. An incident occurred just the other day which brought out this anger, as it was typical and clearly beyond the boundaries of acceptability or even common honesty.

It was around the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Grapes of Wrath. I had been asked to talk about my dad and that book at various functions in honor of the occasion, including an interview for CBS's Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt, along with appearances at high schools and universities. Naturally I try to give readers insight into Steinbeck's works and some of the texture of his thinking. But, as you might imagine, due to some ancient paralysis, I keep running up against a dilemma. I find myself mostly talking in terms of what people seem to want to hear. In part due to my fear and family pressure, as well as wanting to choose the proper turf, I have remained circumspect about referring to the addicted side of my father's personality. This has been true despite the fact that several books currently in print about the disease of alcoholism and American writers named John Steinbeck as a case in point.

Anyway, a journalist who was recently interviewing me referred to my father as "arguably alcoholic." When Elaine Steinbeck got wind of this, she went to Mcintosh and Otis, the literary agency which handles my father's estate, and attempted to rescind her approval for my brother, Thom, to develop Dad's short story "Flight" for a film adaptation. This was after he had already completed the script, and had nothing to do with the comment by the reporter in the paper to begin with. She went for Thom in order to get back at me. Her image, at least the image of the devoted acolyte behind the books, which she has assiduously cultivated since my father's death, is always at stake. And as will become painfully clear, her instincts are correct. Her dominance is probably nearing its end. She herself is very alcoholic, and her conduct as a stepparent to Thom and me has been outrageously sick.

It is unfortunate that this kind of thing creeps around the execution of this project but realistically it is just this sort of malaise that gives rise to the dysfunctionality that is at the core of what I need to express and go beyond. This book is not about grudges. Nor is it about being a hapless victim in an unfair world. It will be tougher and at the same time sweeter than that. As for Elaine, there is nothing I can do, unless perhaps she would like to go into family therapy with Thom and me. She would have to deal with the truth unprotected by the cunningness of this disease or her personal influence. Some day, she will have to face the truth, if only when she meets her Maker.

In short, the truth for me is that along with my father's destructive personality swings, which resulted from alcohol and amphetamine abuse, there remains Elaine's cavalier treatment of his children which has undermined almost all material, psychological, and spiritual connection that we have to the man himself, leaving us feeling isolated from ourselves and his basic decency; and perhaps even his true wish for us. He always told us that he wrote East of Eden for us. The messages about family and fathers and sons, as well as the poisonous principles in that triangle are hard to miss. These things are in fact part of our birthright as well as being part of the mythic archetype which I sometimes feel is implanted in the drama of sons and their need for resolution with the father.

In regards to the basic tension, the self-denial and self-destructive results of a potent regime of dysfunctionality is now well documented within the current understanding of family systems. In all cases, it leaves the survivors acting out messages and signals that can barely be recognized, and worse; it turns victims into offenders who go out and unknowingly recycle the whole vicious mess on a new generation. That is, if they live that long, or are not otherwise stunted by self-abuse of all kinds.

The only known fix for this kind of situation seems to be disclosure. Busting open family secrets without regard to reciprocity or reprisal can at least save what is left of our lives, and since no one else is going to do it, it's good that I begin. And since I'm a writer, I'm going to attempt it with art. Sometimes I feel hopelessly conflicted, and feel like I should understand or be beyond something. My feelings don't need to make sense on the hard turf of logic or be metered out with Republican prudence. I'm not looking for sympathy and we are not in court. As feelings, they are legitimate and stand on their own. Expressing them honestly is essential for the improved ecology of my mind.

I have this tough-guy stance which has often demanded that I take full responsibility for everything that ever happened, even as a child. But in truth, the damage incurred by being raised and role-modeled by untreated maniacs has been enormous. My mother looms violently in this three-ring circus. My father was a maintenance and binge alcoholic, though cross-addicted to speed and brooding rage. Mother, however, was always crazy drunk and deadly and sad. The abused little girl inside her acted out paroxysms of some devastating betrayal. She took no prisoners. Judging from her behavior with us when drunk, she was possibly an incest victim.

I love my father deeply. He had great kindness and humor. He taught my brother and me about so many magical things, and instilled in us the gift of curiosity. I have always been proud to be his son, and I am grateful to both him and my mother for giving me my life and the tools to interpret a wonderfully rich world. In spite of everything, I have been challenged to puzzle out my own fate with a large degree of poetic insight. They gave me this. It is not at all my intention now to break bubbles just for the sake of doing it, but rather to do myself a kindness, and in the long run, do my ancestors a favor and put them back in the realm of human process. As I try to do that with the gifts I have been given, the readers could share in that process.

To an undetermined extent, I think it is probably important for me to pass on a sober account of my experience for the benefit of others who face the same occupational hazards of being the children of the famous. In Thom's and my case, I believe that this was severely compounded by drugs and alcohol, and then open and flagrant threats of disownment, accompanied by Elaine's jealousy, manipulation, and greed. I certainly do not want to remain any longer as the apologist, despite my lifelong training for the roll.

These things are not questions, nor should they imply any request for restitution, or remorse, or even any response from the other side. Needless to say two of the principals are way on the other side in their graves. As for Elaine, the one who remains, with her stated intention to "leave nothing to the boys," I foresee a great shame and a crime of memory should the Nobel Prize sit on the mantel of an unrelated, illiterate Texan's ranch house, due to the fact that she feels free to continue to try to separate us from the nourishing aspects of our birth into a family that was never hers. A great deal of time has gone by where Thom and I endured the negative consequences of our connection with the "Conscience of America," only to be denied that positive connection to him, muzzled by Elaine's ego. Though it is clear that by now she thinks that she wrote the books, his name is mine, and that's all there is to it.

I wish I could say that this book was the story of my life, or the story of a life from the point of view of the son of a famous person. Or the story of the son of a famous person using the models available for understanding dysfunctional family systems due to chemical dependency or other addictions, a book about the symptoms such as sexual or verbal abuse. I don't want to write a book about that. Not exactly. The language of dependency and dysfunctionality as it pertains to family systems can be somewhat desiccating. It is a meta-language. Used as a speculum in a therapeutic setting, it is extremely useful and timesaving. But, like Sanskrit, meta-languages can seem unbearably privileged. To the uninitiated they can be oppressive. I mean, who wants to read about Denial over and over again unless one understands that its main function is to relieve anxiety. Without that understanding, being "in denial" sounds scurrilous and a character defect of the worst sort. It would be fantastic if I could write this book without once using "recovery language" or Buddhist jargon, which is a second language to me due to a twenty-five-year immersion in the psychology of that tradition.

Putting this usage totally aside is a nice idea, but we also live in modern times, and readers are not so uninformed about things that this book should not be seasoned with some direct, if odd terminology; particularly if it is done poetically so that the words dance somewhat akimbo to expectation. Then it has this funny sort of strobe effect which can really grab at you. I think that if it is done lyrically, throwing it in could be like hearing a Japanese instrument rising out of a Western composition. It can stop your mind. This is how I want to use it here. Also, like the proverbial spade, sometimes a thing is just what it is, and there is no other word for it. Grief is one of those things.

The unveiling of my father's feet of clay is a one-shot deal. I don't plan to be the new maven of an endless string of talk shows. By offering some insight, the whole point of this is so that I can get free of it and get on with my life. I used to be stuck in my disease, and I don't want to be stuck in my recovery. I think that a vaster form of recovery is really what needs to happen in our society. The environmental issues such as rain forest and ozone depletion are examples of how we have grown to abuse all substances to include the planet. This is not a metaphor, but a fact. I don't want to sound grandiose, but it occurs to me that there are a vast number of people out there who may never read Alice Miller or Claudia Black, Pia Melody or Susan Forward. They just won't get hooked up with that kind of material regardless of the fact that they are suffering from a simple lack of information about the effects of being raised in a dysfunctional family. However, these same people may well be fans of John Steinbeck's novels, and out of curiosity, they may read this book and end up discovering that they have a common dis-ease, and that help is available through Twelve-Step programs and therapy.

I pray that this might be true and that I could have this unique opportunity to give away the tremendous blessing that I have received from the program and powers higher than mine. In this way, I will also be able to continue to fulfill my Buddhist vows, so that people may wash off a borrowed leprosy and be free.
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Re: THE OTHER SIDE OF EDEN: LIFE WITH JOHN STEINBECK

Postby admin » Fri Mar 18, 2016 8:00 pm

42. Grace Notes

NANCY


It has taken me years to understand the correlation between traumatic relationships and spiritual evolution. Jack Kerouac's lover and Neal Cassady's widow, Carolyn, is one of the few women who can share this insight with me. Another is R. D. Laing's widow, Marguerite. Our marriages plumbed the extremes between abuse and ecstasy. The spiraling rollercoaster ride through deepening levels of pain and exultation required tremendous strength. Our brilliant, creative husbands didn't make it. As rage, indignity, and loneliness laid bare our shadow natures, we were simultaneously rewarded with passion, humor, and excitement. The centrifugal force of those dramas deflated our expectations and attachments. Swallowing intensity like a drowning man, our consciousness and capabilities expanded, and our faith was made deeper.

After Azure Acres, John and I noticed a marked difference in the quality of our recovery. Having lost the pink-cloud naivete about living happily every after, we honored the fragile rituals that grant success. Gratitude replaced self-pity and depression. Quiet joy permeated our lives.

"You guys should bow to each other every morning in appreciation for the love you've found," Thom had once said in frustration when he heard us fighting. Johnny and I spent those final three years in obeisance to each other and our Higher Power. He went to daily AA meetings and formed a close-knit sober support group of men he could trust. I focused on my job at the rehab. Finally we were working our programs in sync, and there was no longer any need for a halfway house. We'd created our own.

Living in a state of grace, we began to travel and meet fascinating people again. That summer, Naropa Institute invited me to speak at a conference on recovery and Buddhism. John and I had a marvelous time visiting our old friends, and we made a new one. Terry Williams was the head of the family program at the country's foremost treatment center, Hazelden, in Minnesota. Allen Ginsberg had suggested we invite him to be part of the conference, as they were friends. The three of us spent long evenings together talking about recovery and the disease.

Terry's insight into the difficulties of loving an alcoholic helped me feel human again. He spoke of Al-Anon Abuse, the patronizing that occurs, as when someone asks, "Have you tried to detach?"

"Feeling the stress from loving a very sick person is not a character defect," Terry said. "Codependants are often castigated for their anxiety, which automatically lessens when the alcoholic quits drinking."

"Denial is a coping mechanism, isn't it?" I asked.

"It's a way of dealing with an untenable situation. The naked truth about loving a person with a terminal disease is often too painful to face head-on."

"I've always viewed denial as a way of cutting up reality into doable doses."

Terry's wisdom helped me shed volumes of guilt and self-criticism about the way I'd dealt with John's disease. Sure, you try to incorporate Al-Anon slogans such as Live and Let Live and Detach with Love, but to expect anyone to achieve the Al-Anon ideal without a deluge of tears and bloodshed is deluded and abusive. They would never offer the glib pieces of advice tossed at Al-Anons to the spouse of a terminal cancer patient. I had been railing against those insults for years and Terry's perspective confirmed my instincts. When you love a dying man, the grief process imprisons you. Thrashing like a hooked fish, your mind flops between shock, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance.

I told Terry about the insult I had received when a fellow therapist heard I accompanied John to Azure Acres. "I don't know how you Al-Anons do it," my coworker sneered. "Why didn't you let him go by himself? You're continuing to enable him by holding his hand." Terry's wince absolved my shame. The time we spent with him smoothed the ragged edges of our frayed dignity.

"An alcoholic is so much more than the sum of his problems," he said.

Our track record wasn't much better with our Buddhist friends, many of whom we lost in our recovery process. They were disturbed by our use of prayer and a Higher Power. We quit trying to figure out if we were theists or non theists, as Buddhists like to call themselves. If our lives were miserable because we had failed to define a spiritual belief system that sustained us, then we were determined to find answers for ourselves, not in Buddhist textbooks. The program forced us to create a relationship with a power greater than ourselves. And professionally, I needed to be able to transmit my spiritual beliefs to my clients, who were lacking spirit. "You know how sometimes when you walk on the beach during a beautiful sunset, you feel touched by grace? Make that your Higher Power."

"My Higher Power is whatever makes the sky blue and the trees green," John decided.

In a spiritual freefall, trying to create a life without constant struggle and pain, we searched for new companions who would sustain and nurture us. One of the most painful breaks was the distance I saw John putting between himself and Thom. He did it kindly, so Thom didn't really notice much, but Johnny was definitely detaching from their mythic drama. Thom was involved with a bulimic woman named Esther, whom Johnny and I nicknamed "Fester" because she ran Thom through so many hoops. It troubled John that his brother was in another tortured relationship with no desire to stop drinking.

Finally, as Thom deteriorated, we did an intervention with the help of one of my coworkers, Mark Bornstein. Thom made an attempt to control his drinking during the last two years of Johnny's life. Ironically, Johnny never stopped worrying about the disease killing his brother.

In the summer of 1988, we joined Dhyani Ywahoo at a UN Peace Conference in Costa Rica, along with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. John and the Dalai Lama had a special connection. Whenever he saw John, in a small gathering or a huge crowd, he would single him out and walk across the room to hug him, like a favorite child. It touched John deeply.

We spent marvelous hours with fascinating people like Father Thomas Berry and Robert Thurman, the Buddhist scholar. Our friendship with the Dalai Lama grew and we made plans to travel with him in California that fall, where he would receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to keep Tibet stable despite the Chinese invasion.

When the conference was over, the Costa Rican government provided us with a chauffeur and a translator so that John could gather material for some travel articles. We toured cloud forests; white, sandy Pacific beaches; the turbulent Atlantic coastline; and spent a day white-water rafting. It was an enchanting vacation.

That fall, a bombshell hit the Boulder Buddhist community when we discovered Rinpoche's spiritual successor, Tom Rich, had been diagnosed with AIDS. Although he had known of his condition for several years, he continued to have unprotected sex with scores of students as well as male prostitutes. He himself had been a Times Square prostitute as a teenager and had a penchant for seducing straight men like Kier Craig, the young son of a community member. Kier ended up infecting his girlfriend and died soon after. The group was instantly divided between moral outrage and staunch denial of any wrongdoing. While the adults fought amongst themselves, the children who had grown up with Kier could only ask "Why?"

The phone lines were burning up between Boulder and our house in La Jolla. We received daily reports about the political machinations as the organization sought to keep the matter secret, lest they lose favor with the general population of Boulder, as well as the world at large. When Rich came to La Jolla to do a retreat at a posh mansion by the seashore, we learned that he had been trying to seduce Megan's boyfriend, another straight young man whom we had known since his childhood. This hit too close to home for John, who was fiercely protective of Megan and Michael. A chilling story had recently been reported by one of Michael's teachers at the Buddhist private school. This straight, married male was pinned facedown across Rich's desk by the guards while Rich forcibly raped him. John feared Megan's boyfriend might suffer the same fate.

Infuriated by Rich's criminal behavior and the fact that once again, as with Rinpoche's drinking himself to death, no one was doing a thing to stop the madness, John decided to take matters into his own hands. Unbeknownst to anyone, even our closest friends, he picked up the phone and called the Boulder newspaper to break the story. Ironically, the reporter he spoke with immediately confessed that she had some very good friends in the community and she feared their wrath if her byline were on the story. John gave her a terse lesson on the responsibilities of a journalist and suggested that she find another occupation if she could not stomach dealing with the truth. Intimidated by his name, his reputation, and his razor-sharp insistence, she dutifully reported the facts as he fed them to her. Rich was out of control and needed to be stopped. If he couldn't stop himself, at least people would know not to have sex with him.

When the papers hit the street, and the story was picked up in syndication, the roof blew off the community. Twenty-year friendships were irrevocably shattered. Those who were outraged that Rich's attendants had stood by in silence for years while he had sex with hundreds of people were confronted by community members who vehemently objected to the accusation that Rich was acting irresponsibly. Some even had the audacity to claim that if Kier had better karma, he wouldn't have been infected. These people were victims of their own magical thinking, as was Rich, who claimed Rinpoche had told him as long as he practiced meditation, his partners would be protected. "This isn't a matter of human foibles and a need for compassion for a sick man," John raged. "This is a matter for the police."

Just as when Rinpoche drank himself to death, when John and I ran out of the adrenaline necessary to metabolize the shock and anger, we were left with a terrible feeling of emptiness and heartbreak. How many friends would we have to lose? How much vilification could we take simply because we believed that a spiritual teacher has a responsibility to uphold moral and ethical principles? Yet, because of our own inner work and the distance we had put between us and the Boulder community, we were stronger this time. At the grocery store, tabloids were screaming the story of Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, which lent a humorous parallel to our Buddhist soap opera. We had a life; we had friends outside the vicious, closed circle of intrigue and deception. We had severed our affiliation to the cult of Vajradhatu.

Something about that phone call to the Boulder newspaper gave John a much-needed jolt of energy. He remembered parts of himself that had been long buried. The Saigon cowboy emerged from hibernation, stimulated by the thrill of breaking a story based on his commitment to telling the truth, no matter how sordid or tragic. He announced that he was ready to write his autobiography. Friends recommended a topnotch literary agent who was thrilled with the project. We flew to New York so John could interview a dozen publishers. Once again, we were ensconced at the Gramercy Park Hotel, with the usual veal marsala room service, but without the alcoholic haze. Johnny met with several publishers each day, and in the evenings we went out on the town.

"You're the most gorgeous woman in New York City," he announced one morning. "I see all these women looking so uptight and miserable. You have a freedom and a light in your eyes that make them all look blase. You still have the eyes of a twelve-year-old."

Suddenly, everything fell into place. After a lifetime of procrastination, Johnny began to write daily. He was still attending AA meetings religiously. The doctors at Scripps Clinic began a regime for his various physical ailments, including regular phlebotomies. They reduced his iron levels down to anemia as the hemochromatosis went into remission. Having lost the taste for La Jolla's pretentiousness, we found a house in rural Encinitas. On picturesque Crest Drive, which is lined with Monterey pines, the area reminded Johnny of Steinbeck Country in the early days, before the golf set moved in. Megan attended the Nova Scotia School of Art and Design in Halifax. With Michael in boarding school, although we missed both children, we appreciated the peace of our empty nest.

When I worked evenings at the McDonald Center, Johnny liked to attend their AA meetings. Mark Bomstein's office was next to mine, and when he was free, he and John would talk about painful childhood memories that had been unearthed by writing. Johnny found him very easy to talk to, and they taped hours of sessions. I had such a sense of peace and accomplishment during those times. When John died, Mark was my most supportive and understanding friend. He came over to the house the earliest and left the latest, content just to chat with everyone. He was there when the box of John's ashes arrived from the crematorium. I was so relieved that he wasn't squeamish. We looked at the coarse powder for a long time, sifting through the granules like kids playing in sand, silently remembering John's essence.

When he wasn't writing, Johnny lived in the hot tub. He'd be waiting there for me when I came home from work. This was our ritual; I'd sink into the water and snuggle in his arms. Then he'd debrief me until the rehab's relentless suffering sloughed off like dead skin. When he could tell I was coming back to life, we'd put on thirsty white terry-cloth robes and fix dinner.

On Friday nights, John always went with six of his friends to a men's AA meeting. Sometimes the women from work would gather at my house for potluck dinners. Before he left, John loved to put jasmine-scented turquoise dye in the hot tub. He'd pick gardenias and lovingly float them in the water, along with candles. It made him happy to create a beautiful atmosphere for my girlfriends and me. After he died, I noticed how some husbands don't like their wives to socialize on their own and it made me sad for the wonderful generosity I had lost.

John bought a creamy Le Baron convertible with a tan top, and we'd drive up and down the coast, with rock and roll blaring. He sang the most beautiful harmony. I used to treasure every note. If he dies, I will miss his singing more than anything. We'd invent riffs, like the Supremes, with hand jive and head tosses. We'd stop at our favorite seaside restaurants, where they knew to give us quiet, intimate tables. We lingered for hours, lost in the magic that had never left us.

That's when my fear started. I thought it was some vestigial paranoia seeping through the cracks of my recovery. I fought it and prayed about it, but it never went away. When we were driving with the convertible top down, especially at night, sometimes I was seized with a terror. Something is going to take John away from me. I can feel it lurking in the shadows. This isn't rational. Am I going insane?

Not knowing, only sensing, what lay ahead, I wondered if I would ever truly recover. Even Gary Eaton was mystified. Of course, when John died, we knew it had been a premonition of the tragedy. I wish I'd been more gentle with myself, for I was merely sensing death in the backseat. Johnny was very tender about my fears, perhaps because he'd caught a glimpse of the specter in the rearview mirror.

We took little trips to Sedona, Palm Springs, Lake Arrowhead. In Sedona, we offered prayers at all the places where we'd been torn apart by the disease. Johnny loved to show me the places in Palm Springs and Big Bear where he'd lived as a kid with Gwen and Gwyn. Closer and more comfortable than ever before, we sailed the highways. A cloud of serenity settled between us. There was always laughter, or delicious, easy silence.

Friends would comment that we seemed like newlyweds. "Especially when he gives you those puppy dog looks," they'd say. I believe John sensed then that he was going to die. He showered affection equally on me, the children, and the pets. Whenever we traveled, he liked to bring along one of the cats or our German shepherd, Sable. Sometimes he'd call and leave a message for the pets on the answering machine. He'd whistle for them, talking in the particular anthropomorphic style he'd inherited from his father. All three Steinbeck men were fond of long soul-searching dialogues with their animals. While riding in the car, when our standard poodle, George, would bark loudly, Johnny would threaten to silence him with a replica of his father's "Dogifier." Based on the one Steinbeck built for Charley, he described it as a series of harnesses, ropes, and pulleys attached to the backseat. Both George and Charley had the annoying habit of furiously barking at both two- and four- legged targets. They would wait until the culprit was safely past and then scream "I'll kill you! I'll kill you!" with nerve-wracking ferocity.

Johnny loved to play endless rounds of fetch with Sable while he sat in the hot tub. He taught her the names of all her squeaky toys. "Go get your taco toy," he'd command. "No, not the hamburger, the taco," and she'd remember that she spoke English. When she brought him the right one, he would throw it across the lawn. In response to his loud cheers whenever she caught one, she'd trot back proudly and drop it in the tub. Then he'd hold the toy just far enough under the water so she had to her put her face in, just up to her eyes, to retrieve it. Johnny had an adorable way of creating domestic bliss. I wish those lovely days could have gone on forever.

He always had time for us. Megan called him often from Halifax for advice on her art projects, or just to chat about life, the favorite Steinbeck family topic. When Michael was home, after a date, Johnny would be waiting to debrief him in the hot tub. They'd talk about everything silly and deep, about sex, drugs, music, morality. All the things a young man needs to hear from his father were covered in those conversations. They would cuddle and gaze at the stars, running the gamut from the big bang theory to blond jokes. Johnny was in samhadi then. A calmness had descended upon him that was palpable. It allowed him to be extremely generous with the ones he loved. As we look back, we often wonder how much he knew.

"Do you think he was even more far out than we thought?" Michael asked me the other day.

"We knew how far out he was. That's why we put up with him." I laughed.

John would proudly tell me about recurring dreams in which he died with the requisite mindfulness that comes from years of Buddhist practice. I never took them as signs, and if he did, he never spoke of it.

When our venerable fifteen-pound Abyssinian cat, Sluggo, tenderly brought John a wounded hummingbird, Johnny took it to the San Diego Zoo's hummingbird aviary.

When he came home, he announced cheerfully, "I'm going to Kitty Heaven when I die. Sluggo will be there waiting for me. Hummingbird Heaven is right next door and everyone there is so happy."

On our last Christmas together, John and I locked ourselves in the bedroom to wrap presents for the children. He had brought in a huge cardboard file box full of discarded pages from his manuscript.

"What's that for?" I asked.

He smiled cryptically. "If my father had saved a box like this for me, I'd be very rich today. I'm giving it to the kids."

Just before he shut the lid, he placed a piece of paper on top that said "CHRISTMAS IN HEAVEN." We were all a bit confused by that present, until the next Christmas, when he was in Kitty Heaven and we were still on earth, missing him desperately.
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Re: THE OTHER SIDE OF EDEN: LIFE WITH JOHN STEINBECK

Postby admin » Fri Mar 18, 2016 8:02 pm

43. Icarus's Flight

FULL MOON IN GEMINI

Sidereal coincidences are conspiring now for sure
They begin to hammer sweetly at the harp on some Cosmic piano

The melody begins to roll over the home in the year of
Squares. You sort through the board games of Karma and dice.

Coincidence is your song and sword which nicks the
Cataracts from the eye of confusion. Linear insight turns
Sharp and defeats even its own foolishness.

Like sorting rubies, you process the touch of time and
Feeling, playing hopscotch on my soul. A tear twinkles in
The eyes of Compassion.

Full moon in Nancy, my male and mirror friend,
While I was looking the other way, you snitched my mind,
And lifted my heart.

Love on your Birthday, John (1990)

LIONESS

The cubs are crying
They are after all
Still chewing on
Each other's ears

Papa smokes,
Takes a pee
And goes way back
To his spot to snore some more

She knows about hunger
Her nature is to hunt
Her nails are sharp
And she likes the exercise

A day without some blood
Is a day without texture
As she watches phenomenon
Chase its own tail,
She smiles the secret
That I
Love
Her

NON RETURNER

Please return or I will be lonely in this Beehive
Please return or I will be lonely in this Garden
Please return or I will be left lonely in the Pond
Please return or I will be lonely in the South Wing
Please return or I will be lonely in the Dresser Drawer
Please return or I will be lonely in my Bright Armor
Please return or I will sweat all alone in the Lodge
Please return or I will be lonely on the Battlefield
Please return or I will be all alone in Town
Please return or I will be lonely in the Asylum
Please return or I will be lonely in Paradise
Please return or I will be lonely in the Shoe Store
Please return or I will be lonely on TV
Please return or I will be in the Shrine Room
Please return or I will be lonely in the Amazon
Please return or I will be lonely on the Subway in the Bronx
Please return or I will be lonely on the Plane
Please return or I will be lonely on Christmas
Please return or I will be lonely in all Realms
Please return to me.

HEARTHHENGE

On the Crest I fill over the Sea
My Druid Priestess sings songs of
Love out of the deepest of Winter

Without her, this Taoist toad would
Never know the colors Blue, or Sable in
A wreath of wildflowers.

She is as faithful as her magic hound,
But most wondrous of all, we are still
Bound this Valentine's Day
(1990)


Besides poetry, Johnny also left little notes for us. He wrote this to Megan, based on a family joke. After returning from our year in Mexico, when she was three, we stayed with Paul's parents in California, waiting for the British Columbia snows to melt. Every morning, Megan would ask where he was going as he walked out the door.

"He's going to work so he can buy you some peaches," her grandmother would say.

From then on, Paul walked out the door as Megan called. "You going-to-work-buy-some- peaches, Dad?" Through the years, Paul and I had incorporated many of her cute sayings into our speech, and John followed suit. He presented this note to her with a copy of his autobiographical manuscript, along with a beautiful mohair sweater.

Dear Megan.

There is an old Egyptian legend that tells of a poor prune farmer who could not dig a living out of the rocky ground to feed his family. But he had a daughter who loved to follow the Angora and Kashmiri sheep herds and buy the expensive cloths made out of their fine fur.

One day she went to her father and said, "Why don't you get off your butt and grow something that has fur on it?"

The father thought carefully about this, and not knowing exactly what she meant, he decided to grow peaches. He became very rich doing this, and then later, his daughter married a prince. Which leads to the famous old Egyptian saying ... "Behind every successful peach farmer is a princess who made it necessary."

So, my darling Daughter, this Peach is for you. I hope you can turn it into a ton of sweaters. I love you.


Here's an example of the silly little notes he'd leave me.

Dear Nancy

I was looking at a picture of you taken six years ago and it is true, I have to say you look just as pretty today as you did then. Honest ... no change. I guess this is due in part to the Gemini thing, but mostly it is due to your basic cheerfulness. Maybe it is in part due to me, but logically, you should look like shit, if I was any influence at all, so it must be all you really. Anyway, I just wanted to say I love you, oh God how I love you, before I go off to my meeting.


After our meeting with the Dalai Lama in Costa Rica, John pondered the subject of his next book. Johnny Avedon, another son of a famous father, had written a book focusing more on the politics of Tibet. John wanted to write more about the Dalai Lama's personal life and planned for us to spend time at his home in Dharamsala, India. When the Dalai Lama received the Nobel Prize, we were with him just north of San Diego, in Newport Beach at a conference on psychology and spirituality. I accompanied John when he did an interview with him for California magazine. By that time, he was the only Tibetan lama whom we trusted. He seemed to throw himself totally into the benefit of all sentient beings, instead of advancing himself, politically, sexually, and chemically, like most of the others. I loved his deep voice and clarity of thought, his ability to listen and grasp the heart of the conversation, without an ounce of pretension.

However, there were disturbing notes in the interview which left us even more cynical about the politics of Tibetan Buddhism, which was just beginning to be recognized as the hottest religion, attracting such luminaries as Richard Gere, Oliver Stone, and the Beastie Boys. New York magazine called it "the decade's belief system for the cultural elite, which includes wealthy lawyers, Wall Street yuppies, and members of the Rockefeller and Luce families." Some Asian American Buddhists are complaining that traditional Buddhist teachings have become too Americanized by the white middle class. Helen Tworkov, editor of Tricycle magazine, wonders if American Buddhism is evolving into "simply another projection of the white majority." Having hung out among so many Asians, this was of concern to Johnny. We were developing a distaste for these chic conferences, filled with wealthy spiritual shoppers. John asked the Dalai Lama how he felt about the elitism.

"Sometimes people unfortunately treat these conferences like vacations and participate with beautiful speech and not much true commitment." he replied. "At the same time, such conferences raise the public conscience and awareness to peace, to the importance of love and compassion. In that way, there is some use for them."

When asked about the consciousness in China changing since Tienamen Square, the Dalai Lama misjudged the situation, considering the genocide and ecological disasters he is predicting now that the Chinese are flooding into Tibetan cities and Buddhists are still killed for possessing his photograph. "The freedom movement in China is very strong. Actually, the present Chinese government is excusing the event, saying that only a handful of people participated. I believe we will see a great change in the next five to ten years. I have met Chinese students and elders who escaped. Their attitude toward the Tibetan problem is much different from the government. After Tienamen, many Chinese attitudes toward Tibetan problems became more clear, and they are taking more interest. Now they start to doubt the government worship that's been going on."

We wondered if His Holiness was aware that many lamas were hoping he would accept a position as head of all the lineages, like a pope. This would create a system of checks and balances that was lacking when Trungpa Rinpoche and other lamas started abusing their power.

"I am a believer in nonsectarianism. I try to provide as much motivation as I can. I have no interest in promoting myself. There are no Dalai Lama centers, no Dalai Lama monastery. Wherever I can contribute, I am willing." To our dismay, he continued, "It is not the Tibetan way to confront errant behavior on the part of the lamas. We prefer to let them learn about their mistakes on their own."

Then Johnny asked him the big question. "You know about the situation within Trungpa Rinpoche's community. Our teacher died of alcoholism after abusing his power with female students. His Regent transmitted AIDS in a similar abuse of power to a young male student. Many of us have experienced extreme heartbreak and a weakening of faith and devotion. Can you address this problem so that other students may avoid these pitfalls?"

"I would say that if you are going to follow a teacher, you must examine his behavior very carefully. In your case, with Trungpa Rinpoche, you had a lama who was drinking alcohol. We say, in our tradition, that a lama is never supposed to drink. Now, occasionally there have been some teachers who drink alcohol and claim to turn it into elixir. If I were considering following a teacher who drinks alcohol and claims to turn it into elixir, or excrement to gold, I would insist on seeing this happen. If I saw it happen, I may follow this teacher. Unless I see that happen, I would never follow him. The student has to take the responsibility of examining the behavior of the teacher very carefully, over a long period. You cannot be hasty about these things."

While we agreed with him, as John and I left the lavish grounds of the Heinz ketchup heirs' estate in Newport where the Dalai Lama was ensconced, we admitted to each other that the only person in whom we'd hoped to find an ally had left us, and the Buddhist world at large, flapping in the wind. "No amount of Tibetan lawyer talk," John sighed, "is going to cover up the stench of underlying corruption. He can blame the student all he likes, but isn't that the same as blaming the victim in any abusive situation?"

"How is their cover-up any different from the decades of secrecy in the Catholic Church regarding their priests' sexual abuse of choirboys?" I countered.

John and I continued to be disappointed as the Dalai Lama and other lineage heads maintained their silence and offered no consequences to renegade lamas. By deliberately ignoring the situation, in what appears to be a fearful political ploy, these titular deities, these so-called God Kings are adding to the confusion instead of delineating clear moral guidelines. Their concern about the truth leaking out, which might drain their monastic coffers, flies in the face of all the teachings and vows they give concerning "right action." Will it be a matter of time before they follow suit with the Catholics in offering apologies?

***

As a distraction from the painful process of dredging up childhood memories, John wrote several articles about the Dalai Lama's visit to California. His creative process was tremendously healing. In a Steinbeck biography published after John's death, Jay Parini claimed that John never got over his anger at his father. Nothing could be further from the truth. When you read these excerpts from an interview that appeared in the San Diego Reader, you see how much Johnny had grown in forgiveness and fondness toward Steinbeck.

"Thom and I talked with Dad about many things, languages and history and cultures and customs. We traveled around the world with him. I had a great education. My father had a lot of eclectic interests, as do my brother and I. We inherited a love of words and communication from Dad. When I was not doing my homework in boarding school, I was reading encyclopedias. He made me think learning things was not a chore, not a duty, but a really exciting thing to do.

"I'm sure that there are all sorts of deep-seated psychological issues in my being a writer and comparing myself to Dad, being under the shadow. They aren't crippling at this point, but they're there. I am sure that for children of famous people, there's a certain amount of pathology that comes with the territory.

"Artists by nature are not particularly gifted as parents. They can be very self-centered, very abusive, and dysfunctional when it comes to raising children. So the kid has to raise himself. Dad never had to be a parent except on his time and on his terms, and then he was very good at that, very good. Very Huck Finny. Had he had to do it day in, day out, he would have failed miserably.

"Dad was a disciplined worker. He would get up at five in the morning, generally, and fiddle around with breakfast. Then he would sharpen pencils for a long time. He had one of the first electric pencil sharpeners ever made. He'd take a pencil, put it in the sharpener, and by the time he had them all sharpened, he had gotten over what all writers have, that morning inhibition about Am I really going to put my mind on a piece of blank paper? By the time his pencils were sharpened, he'd negotiated with all that. And then he would write, from six or seven in the morning until noon. Then he'd quit and go fishing or whittling or invent. I thought that was really enviable, that he only worked until noon. But he did it with a great deal of discipline. He didn't give himself vacations. He didn't gnash his teeth about stuff. He worked out a lot of his mechanical problems by writing letters to his close friends and editors.

"He had a very pixie sense of humor. He liked writing for things. So if he saw, say, an outboard motor that he wanted to have but didn't feel he should spend the money on it, he'd call the Evinrude company and say, 'I'd like to borrow one of your motors and use it fishing, and if I like it, I'll say I like it.' And then they'd give him the outboard motor. He thought that was one of the best parts of the job. Of course, he was well into the dollar-a- word category when this worked out for him, but he still liked being given things for free.

"He once wrote about racing oak trees. I was visiting him and saw, next to his writing desk. a baking dish filled with peat moss and rows of acorns, turned upside down. I didn't let him know I'd read the article, and I asked him, 'What are you doing here?' and he said, 'I'm racing oak trees. Well, it hasn't caught on yet, but if it does, I'll have one of the first stables.'

"It was so strange. He had a very funny private little thing going on, up in the attic where he kept his mousetraps. He'd have a plate of poisoned grain, with signs everywhere saying Mouse Beware. Poison. Do not eat. He was a very funny guy."

When asked about Steinbeck's response to the New York Times suggestion that the Nobel Prize award committee might have found a better recipient, John answered, ''I'm sure his feelings were incredibly hurt, that he was pissed off. I think he had a certain amount of insecurity because he was a Western writer. He lived on the East Coast with the Ivy League literate crowd. He never pretended to be an intellectual. He was a shy man, and I think it made him insecure and then furious. They were such snobs.

"I do know that one person came up to him in Stockholm, when he went there for the prize. An East Coast-type lady said, 'I wonder how long it would take to earn $50,000 tax free.' He looked at her and said, 'Forty years, lady. I just did it.'

"He worked very hard at what he did. He was poor for a long time. His success of any remark was in his late thirties. He worked at a lot of things, manual labor, a night watchman. He helped pour cement for Madison Square Garden.

"Some odors remind me of him. A certain Florida toilet water. I noticed very pleasantly the other day when I walked into my office and it smelled like my father's office. Certain humor reminds me of Dad. My brother and I share a lot of his humor. Thom's quite like him. Walking down the street, without even thinking about it, my father would tip his hat to a dog. My brother does that, spontaneously and genuinely. When it's most touching is when you see your own hands picking up something in a way that your father or your mother did.

"I communicated better with him after he was dead then when he was alive. After he died, I got some writing lessons from him. I got some lessons about how to deal with people, sometimes by reading something he told to someone else. The most gratifying thing he gave me, both before and after he died, was to know that the most refined, highest wisdom and human knowledge is found in the everyday ordinary world. Not in a library of Sanskrit, not at Oxford, but from the guy down the street. That guy knows as much. The common wisdom is the most profound. Ordinary mind is enlightened mind. Fortunately, my Buddhist training reinforced that truth.

"Not that my father didn't believe scholarship was useful, but that it had its place. If he needed to learn something about the language of the Middle Ages, he would go to the books or scholars who could teach him, but he did that only so he could learn what ordinary people said in the Middle Ages.

"The first time I saw The Grapes of Wrath was when Dad screened it for some guests. I was quite young. It was the most depressing thing I'd ever seen in my life. Later, when I was a teenager, I read it and was equally depressed. In the seventies, I was holed up during the monsoon in an old French hotel in Vientiane and I read it again. That's when I got the most out of the book as a writer. By that time, I was writing. So then I actually saw how deft he was. I saw the nuts and bolts of the writing. That was as impressive to me as the historical value of the book, making America aware of the Dust Bowl and Depression from the farmers' point of view. People think of Steinbeck as being 'oh-so-realistic' and really catching the sound of the way people talk. If you look at the book closely, nobody talks like that. It's a big kind of cartoon in the fresco sense of the word, an overdrawn image of the way people might talk.

"But by the time it filters down to you, it sounds real. Kind of like Chinese political theater, it's supposed to reach the guy in the last row. It resounds hugely."

When asked about his father's attitude toward the Monterey Peninsula, John said, "He wasn't the town's favorite son. They didn't like him. His works were not well received. People were outraged that his characters were loosely based on real people. He'd be confused and amused by the homage now being paid to him. There was a long time when he couldn't even get arrested in this town. Even after winning the Nobel and the Pulitzer, many local people refused to acknowledge him as an important writer. Now he's an institution.

"Back when he was writing about the Peninsula, he felt rejected. He was very discreet when he came back to visit relatives in the area. There were no bands waiting for him. Today, the hostility of the community has changed. I don't think those feelings exist anymore. Now he's a hero, but when the stories were written, residents were sensitive about what they saw as their portrayal in Steinbeck's combination of fiction and nonfiction.

"Every square inch of the county resounds deeply for me. It almost seems genetic, because of my father's books. Last time I was here, I was attending a ceremony for the issuance of the John Steinbeck commemorative postage stamp. In a strange confluence of history and coincidence, Cesar Chavez was also in town at the time and there was a lettuce strike going on.

"What was extraordinary was to be in front of the Steinbeck Library, where the podium was set up in sight of a strike demonstration just a block away. No one at the stamp ceremony seemed to make the connection between the strikers and Dad, who chronicled farm-labor struggles here in the thirties.

"I'm not criticizing, just pointing that out. I'm sure that in New York tonight, many people will see the current Steppenwolf production of The Grapes of Wrath. As they leave the theater, they'll step over some homeless person and not even make any connection to what they've seen, and probably been very moved by, on stage."

***

On the day that we got the word that he was getting a sizable advance from his publisher for his autobiography, Johnny wanted to visit the Paramahansa Yogananda Ashram near our house. We loved to sit in the lush gardens and stare out at the ocean. "I need to meditate about the future and what this book is going to bring us."

I have to admit, while I was sitting there, I mostly thought about the money. Johnny and I had a penchant for living well, and we had been planning to spend a year in Tuscany after the book tour. When we were driving home, he said quietly, "Writing this book is going to bring me to the Source. All I saw was God." That evening, he wrote this letter to his inner child.

Dear Boy,

I have wanted to tell you about myself and where we come from for a long time. I thought that I should wait for a sign that you were old enough to understand, but I have come to think that I am not the right judge of these matters. So believe me, the fact that it's your birthday is more poetic justice than some insipid bequeathal on my part. You are far more than just a clever boy and I am sure that you will be able to use whatever part of this is appropriate to you. The stories are free and clear, and I really don't have any fear for slippage in their application or interpretation. As your Tibetan and Indian ancestors say, "Even when the most beautiful bird flies in the sky, sometimes shit falls on a stone." I think they mean by this that understanding happens all by itself; independent of the intentions of the source, or the relative merits of the recipient.

Speaking of flying, I want to tell you about your secret name, Icarus. Some people will tell you that you are named after a hapless fool. Don't believe it. This is the propaganda of old men whose penises have shrunk like salted slugs out of fear. Some will tell you it is the story of recklessness and rebellion over common sense. They will tell you that disobeying his father, Daedalus, Icarus flew too near the sun and the wax on his wings melted and that he plunged to his death into the Aegean Sea. In truth, his body was never found, only the insufficiently functional wings that Daedalus had fashioned for him. As you know, they were both trying to escape the Labyrinth and the monstrous Minotaur of Crete, both of which Daedalus also had a hand in creating it seems.

Anyway, the myth of Icarus is extremely colorful and full of symbolic meaning no matter what version one chooses to follow. Contained in it are the thoughts of imprisonment, and intellect and love, as well as grief and transcendent vision born of courage and genius. We all love wings because we know by instinct that, in the sphere of complete happiness, our hearts will enjoy the power to wheel through space as a bird flies through the air. Inasmuch as it's your name you might want to look into it. But since we have all had a hand in creating each other, let me give you my take on the story.

I don't think that Icarus's aspirations were too high. He knew enough about his homeland of Greece from his father who had been the most famous craftsman of his time and who had been hired by everybody to solve their problems mechanically. Most of the inventions worked fine, but like the wings (and the fake cow that the queen of Crete had him construct to attract the bull that resulted in the Minotaur) an awful lot of them seemed to have a skewered effect farther down the line. This was hardly his fault. Daedalus was a craftsman, and though he was extraordinarily gifted and sure of himself, he was not a seer.

But that part doesn't matter too much. Icarus did not just want to go home. I believe he yearned to go to the source of life, the blazing mystery. He wanted to live in the very life of life, and so he caught a thermal that matched his inspiration. The son set off to the Sun. True, there were some technical problems, but as I said, they never found the body, only the busted wings. I choose to believe he made it.


Like his father, Johnny kept a journal during the writing of his autobiography. Here are some excerpts:

10/14/89

So here I go with a journal of my autobiography. It's six in the morning. "Off to work early" as Dad would say. This is the way he started his workday, though with him it would start by sharpening pencils, writing letters, or crafting lies and emotions that would most certainly be read later and considered art, a treasure. That guy was smart, I'll tell you. It did so many things at once, this keeping a journal business did. Not the least of which was to establish a discipline that he could measure and fuss about.

So, I'm going to try it, Dad. This may be the only entry in the whole fucking thing, but I'm going to try it. I won't be able to go fishing later in the afternoon, like you, yet. But the rest, I will try. Your treasures and legacy obviously weren't in cash, so perhaps if I imitate you I will grow to be like you. You know, like Buddhism. So, like a monkey imitating a man imitating his father imitating his guru imitating the Buddha, maybe we can get somewhere with this and forge the outer container at least. My prayer this morning to all the higher powers that guide my life, including the ancestral powers that include, but are greater than even you, Dad, to all this I pray that I might have the willingness to stick to this form till I get this out of me. Grant your blessings. I supplicate my entire immense lineage, spiritual, corporeal, genetic, and sublime. Please grant your blessing.

10/15/89

This is so difficult. I just pray that I have the discipline to continue it. Our old Buddhist friend, Duncan Campbell, called this morning. Nancy and I talked for three hours with him about Vajradhatu dysfunction, group and individual denial, Rinpoche's sickness, the spread of it, and on and on. One thing becomes so clear to me and that is my instinctive resistance to breaking out of my abused child mold. More exactly, the will is there but the folds of the covers that I have grown to protect myself from a cold, naked view of the situation are incredibly thick. The body of this work so far is a perfect example. Yesterday's writing session is almost indecipherable. This journal is a great idea. I don't feel such a need to "write" here. I don't have the urge to encase my feelings in poetry and intellect as much. I know that Dad did it even in his journals. He lied like hell in them. He knew they would be read. I openly hope that this will be read, too, but I will try not to lie and aggrandize my motive as much as he did. This is in fact the only way that I can get through the business of writing my story.

If I think that my self-conscious writing style constitutes the truth of what I feel, then I am in worse shape than I think I am ... and I think I'm in really bad shape as it is. My hope is that I am Gemini and schizophrenic enough to do both things without destroying the fruit of one or the other. So for now, today I will see if I can unravel yesterday's "written" page and move on a bit. As Dad would say, I got off to a slow start today, slept longer than I wanted to, and there was that call that went on for hours with lawyer Duncan filing his brief for the first time in a couple of months.

(Later) Well, I got through to a little "honesty" at the end of page 2 and have established that I am pissed off at least without wasting too much more time in the ozone. See what happens tomorrow, I think. I've had enough of me, but my office got a little cleaner and I got some more light in here, thanks to lamps from TARGET.

10/16/89

I spoke to Rick Fields this morning to try to find a chink in Duncan's grim view of My history. With all this adult child of an alcoholic stuff coming up, the stuff that is, in fact, the spine of this book, it was just too painful. I have a need to minimize the situation within the Vajradhatu community. Then I find myself around every turn in the river trying to sabotage myself. I don't want to see things clearly about my family either. The whole thing is so cunning. I could easily use even this journal to deflect myself from my own purpose, which is to write about the truth of what happened.

All right now, back to the writing. Time to describe some of the so-called coincidences that I then go on to spending so much time and effort to debunk. I have no sense of order. I'm just groping in the dark and one of the main reasons my agendas are hidden is that I don't have any light.

(Later) Well, I lost my cat twice today and roasted a chicken. Actually, I feel like I lost a chicken and roasted my cat twice. I seem to be very unsteady on my feet. I am stumbling around like in a silent film comedy, and it's hard to get the cobwebs out of my head. Not much work done except in my heart about me and the cat. I did get a little farther making sense out of the first three pages. See what happens tomorrow which will be:

10/17/89

Well, to start with, I hope there are no cat issues to deal with today. I can barely deal with the John issues. I'm appreciating the heirloom of this journal technique more and more. This is only the fourth day, but I can get my hands moving, and my brain into my ass and fingertips without just staring out the window.

10/18/89

I had a strange, perhaps healing dream about Dad last night. The details are fading fast, and really only two things were important enough to remain. We were preparing for some sort of gathering. He was trying to establish his moodiness and I wouldn't play, so he hit me over the head with a table. He was terribly tall, so I had to crane my neck to look up to him and speak. I started telling him he was full of shit, but I got tired of looking up. Almost casually, I forearmed him in the groin, and, as he buckled, I told him that the days of his domineering techniques were over. He was totally shocked by the blow, and further astounded that I was cogent enough to know where he'd been coming from. The worm had turned, and though I was sorry in the dream for having hit him, I was also pleased with myself for having interrupted the flow of his complacence about his own anger.

I have never kept a journal. with the exception of the one that Terrence McNally made us keep on the long trip with Dad. This is the first time I have tried to sustain this sort of discipline. There is something that feels a little forced, even phoney about it all. I mean, why bother to write this stuff when I can just think it. Perhaps I will return to imagining that this is the greatest thing in the world by tonight.

10/19/89

Before I get down to anything here, I have to write an antique store in Boulder to authenticate some of the last family heirlooms so they can be sold. It is very painful. Not the selling of it, but I have been so badly ripped off in the past, the whole business pricks memories of MY unmanageability to such an extent that I want to whistle or something ... you know, like you do when a memory of what you did in a blackout drunk comes back to you. Jesus, I hate this shit.

On Saturday, I'm going up to LA, to Pacifica Radio to read the first chapter of The Grapes of Wrath for a group that is going to raise money for the homeless. I am looking forward to that, though it brings back many issues of Elaine's cachet with the name that I don't have. When I am through with that stuff, perhaps I will be able to get back to putting a few words down on the book, but there are no guarantees. Nancy is home today, and though she has PMS and behaves like a Bouncing Betty Mine, I love having her around nonetheless. Codependency? Who cares?!

It appears that I may have to be three not two people to accomplish this work: recovering alcoholic with adult child of an alcoholic issues, writer, and strategist in finding a publisher and an advance. Whatever it entails, I suppose that I should do it and not make my head spin about motive, sequence, or how many roles I play. This is not so horrendous a task for a Gemini so I don't know what I am complaining about really. Probably just to complain, as usual. Whatever is going on with me and this, there always seems to be someone deep down there who is minding the store, and knows just exactly what is going on. I hope it is God and not me because I will fuck it up for sure.

10/20/89

I went up to LA on Saturday and did the thing for interview for Charles Kuralt's Sunday Morning show and the reading for KPFK radio. I was not happy with the TV thing. The interviewer had no energy whatsoever, and I felt as if I had to do all the work, and I just couldn't. Perhaps they will save something from it, but I doubt that it will be scintillating.

This week, I must do the piece on His Holiness or I will feel bad. Later, or in between times, I will look at the Dad thing here. I love it, "the Dad thing." Christ, what people we are here in this century. I can't even bother to put a whole sentence together to describe an activity of the mind. We's in BIG trouble. Like, you know, "the big trouble thing."

11/16/89

I have to go see the doctor today to find out just how lethal my various genetic diseases have become. I have only really addressed my alcoholism, but I know that the Hemochromatosis is slowly doing the job. It depresses me if I let it. Then I think of the Dalai Lama's advice and that helps. If you can do something to change depressing circumstances, do it. Otherwise, don't worry, because it never helps. I just called my lawyer. He'll call back. Then I called my agent. She'll write back. I also called the Mormons for family junk about Steinbeck genealogy. They'll pray back, I suppose.

They're talking about a sizeable advance, which I'm trying to think of as a present from God, because He loves me, and I hope I will use the money wisely, for the benefit of sentient beings. I know that I want to get Thom some health insurance, me a fax machine, Nancy a Movado watch, and that's about it. Most of all, I'll use the money for us to live on and for me to write on and produce a really fine and unique book.

I probably will need some sort of outline. It could start in the present and work backwards, as in the "... let me tell you how it all started" style. Or, "... when I was a child of three, I used to see what looked like a big monkey on my wall, which gave me my first taste of barbiturates to get me to sleep." I don't know. Perhaps that would be needed. Probably I will need to do some reading of others to get a handle of the possibilities.

I have a great fear of becoming paralyzed with acceptance. I mean, it's not exactly like I have had this happen all that much before. Part of it is mythical, and then I feel as if I am being romantic about levels of neurosis that I don't even have the track record to actually have. Then I think this is further negative programming that I somehow perversely do all to myself. What am I afraid of here? I am afraid of the money. I am afraid that I am no good. I am afraid that I will not be able to remember the things that are necessary to flesh out the story, and that I will not have the skill to do it properly.

Thanksgiving 11/23/89

This was our first Thanksgiving without the kids. Nancy and I decided to celebrate it together, without guests. I put together a little turkey with dressing and while it was roasting, we went for a drive up the coast. It's been light and peaceful. Nancy's in bed now. The stress is mounting, and it's not always coming out in pretty ways. Last night I dreamed that Dad and I were in Vietnam somewhere, and he was critiquing my writing. It was sort of fun, certainly entertaining and picturesque, though the colors were somber, and there was some heroin involved. That is, the desire to score again. Those dreams don't go away immediately.

When I awoke, I started thinking about Elaine and Thom's relationship. It began to dawn on me how fucked their collusion really was, and how my denial about it, or to be more precise, how my minimizing the events has been very responsible for screwing up the flow of goodness from my father to me, along with any number of other emotional complexes, due to Elaine's shamelessness and Thom consistently caving in to her.

Now I am really angry. For instance, how could she have been executor of the will, looking out for our best interest? There must be something that my lawyer can do about that. I am really pissed off. I blame Thom a little bit, too. The problem is, I don't know where to start or stop with this blame thing. The best thing would be if I didn't start, but that just isn't going to be true for me, and that sort of pious trip is the very thing that has kept me frozen for all these years. I feel that there is a therapeutic need to blame them.


***

That was the last entry in Johnny's attempt at a journal. He decided to turn his full attention to the autobiography. It took him a year to complete the first half. He polished his words with the care of a jeweler. Often he brought me his work, a page at a time. He called me his cheerleading muse. I wish mine were so loving; she tortures me mercilessly when I don't write.

***

When the end came, it was quick. Seven months before he died, Johnny started to notice that he couldn't read freeway signs. He complained they were blurry. We were shocked at the diagnosis. It was diabetes, often a side effect of hemochromatosis. Johnny was crushed. He'd worked so hard on his health since he'd finally gotten sober, and now it seemed all in vain. Sticking to a strict diet, he carefully monitored his blood sugars, and within a matter of weeks he was able to get off the medication. That did not stop the death knell from sounding.

We joined an exercise class in the fall of 1990. After a month, Johnny's back went out in the same place as before. He consulted with a doctor who prescribed physical therapy, but when that didn't help, we went for a lethal second opinion.
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Re: THE OTHER SIDE OF EDEN: LIFE WITH JOHN STEINBECK

Postby admin » Fri Mar 18, 2016 8:08 pm

44. The Karma of Words

NANCY


Flash forward eighteen months after Johnny's death. I am sitting at a long conference table with the downtown skyline and San Diego Bay outside the window. Flanked by six lawyers who are deposing Megan, Michael, and me for the malpractice suit we have filed against four doctors and the hospital where John died. Dan Deuprey, the lawyer who represents John's orthopedic surgeon, has just succeeded in reducing me to tears with his sarcasm and innuendo. I ask to be excused from the room. Since he's there to defend the doctor we believe to be most responsible, he is merciless with me. After I leave, one of the other lawyers turns in anger to Deuprey. "Do you think you were mean enough to her?"

The sarcasm goes right over his head and he smirks. I'd been warned about lawyers like him who thrive on attempts to strip family members of their dignity in order to save money for the malpractice insurance company. I was warned that the defense lawyers would tear my life apart. Michael Kaplan, my lawyer, is there, holding my hand through all of it. We have become very good friends. Three days later, at the end of the twenty-seven-hour- long deposition, the court reporter tells me she has never seen a lawyer be so sensitive to his client's needs.

For four years following Johnny's death, the defense lawyers tried to level me. They pried into our lives, attempting to prove that Megan, Michael, and I didn't have a strong enough relationship with John to warrant any financial consideration. They demanded to see Megan's diary, and a list of each gift and every dollar Johnny had ever given us. Thinking this would force me to spend hours going over our bank statements, I frustrated their efforts by stating that Johnny gave me all his money to manage. They obtained confidential records from every therapist we'd seen, desperately trying to prove there was no love in our family.

"What right do they have to pry into our personal lives this way?" I asked Michael Kaplan. "The marriage isn't on trial here. We're talking about mistakes made by the doctors."

"If you deny them access to the records, they'll accuse you of hiding something," he explained.

That night, after two days of depositions, Deuprey took my lawyer aside. "Tell Mrs. Steinbeck she might want to leave the children at the hotel. I'm going to be attacking the marriage."

What those guys didn't know was that after we filed the lawsuit, an anonymous typewritten letter arrived at Kaplan's office.

To the attorney for the Steinbeck case:

Too many times hospitals cut corners and costs. It is only when someone dies that these areas of neglect are evident. Hospital relies on it's "reputation" to get around many quality of care issues. What happened to Mr. Steinbeck was below the standard of care.

Here are some items that need closer inspection

1. Was there a crash cart in the OR? NO.

2. Was the OR staff familiar with it once it came into the room? NO.

3. Was a code called? NO. Why not?

4. Why is there no official code blue record as required? NO. Nothing was filled out.

There is a large liability all because the hospital did not want to spend dollars on lifesaving equipment. Ask the nurses.


When the doctors heard that Ralph Nader's group, Congress Watch, had asked if I would testify before Congress and Hillary Clinton about the rights of malpractice victims, their lawyers threatened me with slander suits. No matter how much they tried to torture me, nothing was going to stop me from seeing the lawsuit through.

Just before the operation, Megan had asked John if she could use his X-rays and MRI film for an art project. A kind nurse provided them after his death. In the envelope, we discovered the written results of a chest X-ray. "Abnormal finding in the patient's pulmonary vascularity. CAT scan recommended." That's when I called Michael Kaplan. For months, I spent a nightmare existence pouring over John's autopsy reports with my lawyer, learning the size and weight of his lungs and brain, the lengths of all fourteen scars, and the ways in which they had compromised his medical care.

Back in the conference room, I dried my eyes and was ready to resume the seventeenth hour of questioning. Deuprey leveled his guns at me again. He asked questions in a flat, needling voice, hoping that I would eventually wear down under his sneering. His nonverbal message was, "You're just a pathetic widow. What right do you have to question the authority of any doctor?" All the other lawyers had been extremely polite, but I could tell that their egos weren't involved the way his was.

Deuprey looked at the doctor's record of our first visit. "The next sentence I'd like to bring to your attention in this medical record dated January 17, 1991, is as follows -- do you have that in front of you to read along with me -- 'I have advised Mr. Steinbeck that because of his medical problems, i.e., hemochromatosis, diabetes, and obesity, that we will need medical consultation preoperatively.' Does that appear to be an accurate account of the conversation you and your husband had with Dr. L.?"

"When we saw Dr. L., we told him about John's complex medical history, as well as his bouts with congestive heart failure, which aren't even listed here. Nor does the doctor say anything about our repeated requests for him to get all of John's medical records and to consult closely with an internist concerning the results of John's pre-op tests. We asked for all that to be done before Dr. L. decided to go ahead with the operation. None of that was done. L. might as well have put a gun to my husband's head." I knew Deuprey didn't like me talking like that, but it was interesting to bait him. He hated women and, sadistically, I wanted to remind him why. For the most part, I was imperious. Johnny taught me that one well.

"If he took my husband's medical condition and his life seriously, he should have ordered John's records from Scripps Clinic. We would never have consented to the operation had we known that they had not reviewed those records, let alone that they had ignored abnormal test results."

Over lunch, Kaplan said, "Deuprey never wants to face you in front of a jury. You're too good. You'd have their sympathy. You're the kind of witness he'd rather die than cross- examine." Since Johnny signed an arbitration agreement before the operation with Dr. L., this part of the lawsuit will never go to trial. A judge and two lawyers will try it in arbitration, which has the reputation in California for being a kangaroo court. Kaplan cracks, "You're being tried by three guys with a hundred-year cumulative history of thinking they're God."

Taunting, Deuprey attempted to undermine my anger. "What is your belief as to what any CAT scan would have shown, had it been done?"

He's not going to trap me on that one. "I'm not a medical expert," I snapped.

"Do you have a personal belief as to what it would have shown?" he tried again, flatly.

''I'll have an expert witness testify to that when the time comes."

"I don't want you to guess or speculate, but obviously you attach a great deal of importance to the failure to run a CAT scan. I would like to ask you why it is you feel that the CAT scan would have been important in your husband's case."

"Obviously the X-ray department felt it was important enough to recommend, or they wouldn't have written the report. I believe that anything that cautioned the doctors into looking further into John's medical history was highly important. Perhaps if that CAT scan had been done, my husband would be alive today, and my children would have a father."

"All you can do is basically guess or speculate about that?"

This time it was my turn to sneer. "You just said you didn't want me to guess or speculate, and then you asked me why I thought the CAT scan was so important. That's what I told you I'd be doing in this answer, because I'm not a medical expert, so don't object to my response."

Wearily, he sighs, "That's fine. Thank you for answering the question."

The next day, I left Megan and Michael at the hotel. I wasn't trying to spare them Deuprey's attempts at airing dirty laundry, because they knew it all anyway. I wanted to give them a break.

For eight more hours, Deuprey asked me all kinds of questions about Johnny's drinking and the problems it had caused in the marriage. I had nothing to hide. His shameless questions about John's addictions weren't about me, or my marriage, or even the person who had died on the operating table. They were about the disease. He acted as if I should be mortified to talk about the wreckage of John's life in front of strangers, but I wasn't. My pride in our relationship and Johnny's successes, my refusal to hang my head about the bad times, only caused consternation in him. I knew what he was doing. He hoped to portray John as a hopeless junkie loser, so they wouldn't have to compensate our loss. Deuprey looked particularly ridiculous when he sanctimoniously asked, "Have you derived any comfort from the Buddhist belief that a person dies when his time is up?" As if that would let them off the hook.

Malpractice is hard to prove. We had such a clear case that local doctors appeared as our expert witnesses, which is highly unusual. Although we lost the arbitration, one of the doctors offered to settle out of court and, in the long run, John died a winner. The kids and I are winners because we loved him. He died at peace, having forgiven those who warranted his pardon, and eliminating people from his life who diminished him. You can't get more real or successful than that.

***

The night before John's operation, I had the dream that Sable, our German Shepherd puppy, had died. A voice told me, I am taking my angel back today. You have spent as much time with him as can possibly be allowed. You must accept this, and never doubt that it was not meant to be. There is a greater plan here. Do not feel sorry for yourself This is not an accident.

I woke Johnny up with coffee and climbed back into bed, snuggling down with my cup, gingerly wrapping my ankle around his. He called that Chinese Love, where a couple feels so entwined, their feet naturally gravitate toward each other in a graceful knot of union. "When the marriage is that strong, you can run a village on the power."

I told him about the dream. He promised if anything happened, he would be our guardian angel and never leave our side. I promised I'd finish his book.

One of my girlfriends called to wish us luck. ''I'm lying here with my beautiful wife, feeling so peaceful," he told her. "If I'd known life was going to be this good when I quit using, I would have stopped twenty years ago."

We finished our coffee and John took one last hot tub in the morning sun. I watched him through the bedroom window as I dressed. What if he dies? What if something goes wrong? I chose to ignore those thoughts. Later, friends would ask me why we failed to see the puppy dream as an omen.

I drove John to the hospital. An abandoned wheelchair sat near the entrance. Johnny waited in it while I parked the car. I carried his overnight bag and a cardboard Chinese Good Luck God that Megan and I had picked out the day before in Chinatown. He hadn't seen it before and he frowned at it through his pain, half kidding, "That isn't a funeral symbol, is it?"

After registering, they put us in a private room. It was brilliant with sunlight and in that light I felt waves of tenderness and hope for the return of John's health and mobility after the operation. I went to a nearby party store and bought crepe-paper garlands of vivid parrots and tropical fish and a massive bouquet of balloons. I wanted to fill that sterile anonymous cubicle with vibrant colors and life, to counter the antiseptic air and sterile gleaming instruments. I wanted to surround Johnny with colorful, exotic animals, symbols of my love for him and the realms in which we dwelt. As I transformed the room, I thought a hospital room had probably never looked like that, a tropical jungle paradise. Yet, in spite of the brilliant colors, I felt as though I were swimming through a murky dream, moving out of time. The day existed only to be gotten through.

Out in the hall I ran into the Chicana housekeeper who used to clean my office at the McDonald Center. I thought her familiar face was a good sign, and I brought her in to meet John. A doctor stopped by to ask routine questions. When he noticed John's abdominal gunshot wound from Vietnam, it suddenly hit me, after all those years of being with him, how lucky I was that it hadn't killed him. He could have been struck in the heart and I would never have had the chance to know him. Why hasn't that occurred to me before? I have taken so much for granted with this man. Why does that bullet hole suddenly seem so meaningful? It's like watching a foreign movie, where you don't understand the symbolism.

When the nurse came to fill the IV with pain meds, we agreed that I should go home and help Megan get ready for her trip to Costa Rica. She was leaving the next day to start her job as a photojournalist for the gringo newspaper in San Jose. John would be sleeping until the late afternoon, when they had scheduled the operation.

Four hours later, the kids and I returned to his room. They floated around his bed, playing with the electric controls and teasing him, giggling, and joking. Michael went out to smoke a cigarette on the stairs. Later, he said he had a strong feeling that something bad was going to happen, but he just ignored it. When he told me about it, he wondered if he had done something wrong by not speaking up.

"How can you follow up on every thought?" I asked. "You'd be paralyzed."

Later, Megan said she hated the way the orderly helped John up on the gurney. "He was so sloppy about it, like he didn't know how special Daddy was."

I did not kiss John good-bye. Whenever one of us was leaving, the other got kissed or it was "Where's my kiss? Come and kiss me! You want a kiss? Give me a kiss! Kissy-kiss!" We spent so much time kissing and saying I love you in those last years that I've never felt guilty. I know why I didn't kiss him good-bye. After all the drug crises and drunken ordeals, I still couldn't stand to see him drugged even on the painkillers he needed. I looked away. I'm not mad at myself about that. I understand why I couldn't. It's sad, but if you'd been through what I've been through with John's addictions, and kissed him as much as I had, you'd know it wasn't important.

As they wheeled him out, I never thought about going down to meet the anesthesiologist. I had fought so hard for his life in so many medical settings. Now that he was sober, I couldn't fight anymore. I had to let him handle the situation on his own. Perhaps if I had accompanied him, they might have asked more questions about his medical history. They might have noticed that his tests were abnormal and postponed the surgery.

Megan and I dropped Michael off at the house and went shopping for her trip. In the aisles of the grocery store I started feeling dread. I just wanted the hours to pass quickly. We mindlessly watched a rented video, Daddy's Dying, Who's Got the Will? while Michael took a nap. It was about a family squabbling over inherited money. Disgusted, we stopped the tape and never got the symbolism till the next day.

"Mom," Megan suggested, "why don't you call to see if John's out of the operating room?" As I put the phone to my ear and started to dial, I heard the doctor's voice. The phone never even rang.

"I want you to get in your car immediately and drive here very slowly."

"Is he all right?"

''There's a problem" was all he'd say.

I slipped into shock. Megan knew; she didn't ask for any explanation. We looked at each other in panic. I didn't want to wake Michael from his innocent sleep, so we left him, just in case. Within several minutes I had called every shaman, nun, psychic, and lama that we knew with the same short message: "I think John is dying, can you bring him back?" Megan grabbed John's mala, Tibetan rosary beads. We got in the car and tore down to the hospital.

They put us in a tiny room. It was airless and had no windows, designed by a heartless architect who thought it would be an efficient holding cell for the relatives of dying patients. Someone went to get the doctor.

"It will take about twenty more minutes for us to know what's wrong," he said breathlessly. He did not tell us they'd been pounding on John's chest for an hour trying desperately to bring back some brain-dead semblance of him so that they'd be absolved. I wasn't sure what he was going back to look for but I didn't want to waste time by asking.

Without a word, Megan and I began to pray. I remembered the dream, I saw all the signs, I heard the voice saying this was no accident, not to feel sorry for myself, to accept the death.

If your time has come, I'm not going to hang on, I release you with all my heart and all my love. But if it's not time, and you can possibly come back to stay with us, please return because I'll die without you.

The doctor returned with four others. White coats all in a row. They said they were sorry in unison. He was gone. Do you want to request an autopsy? Please sign here. Do you want to go in to say good-bye? Is there anyone we can call?

Swimming in shock, without thinking I called a friend who had lost both her parents in a car crash. I knew she'd be smart about quick decisions. Buddhists don't believe in mutilating the body after death, but she urged me to have an autopsy in case the doctors had screwed up. Then she said very slowly and deliberately, as if she knew that's the way you cut through the cotton batting of trauma, "You need to go in there with the kids and say good-bye. You need to see him."

"I don't want that to be my last memory of him."

"Believe me, it won't," she said. "If you don't, you'll regret it later."

I called Ginny, a coworker from the McDonald Center, who'd been widowed the year before. I knew she'd understand the situation. I asked her to drive us home. And then I gently woke Michael.

"Something's happened with John. Come down here." I wondered how I would tell him. When he walked in, I could see he already knew.

We walked into the silent white room. I saw the body. I saw guilt on the faces of the OR staff. "I saw it too, Mom," Megan said later.

The kids took Johnny's hands and started to cry softly. I never touched him. In his life, John burned hot, like a meteor. His hands were always warm. I loved to squeeze them and play with his fingers. I didn't want to feel cold on his hands. Megan wasn't afraid; she just sat there braiding his fingers in hers. There was a tube in his mouth, so his lips were formed in a slack smile, cool as he was in life, like a musician in the middle of a riff. For a while it seemed like he was playing a trick on us, and we thought he could open his eyes anytime to see if we'd fallen for it. Megan burst out with a hysterical giggle. "It looks like he's faking, doesn't it?"

Then I knew it wasn't him anymore in that body. This is your death, this is what you look like dead. This is the moment you have courted and flirted with all your life, Johnny. His Bodhisattva sweetness was still palpable in the air.

I said good-bye to the flesh then and turned my attention to Megan and Michael while trying to savor the sacredness of that moment. They hadn't had my dream about taking back the angel. John hadn't just promised that morning that he would always be their guardian angel. I was more focused on comforting them than my pain. I knew that Johnny, the Night Tripper, was not clinging to his body. There would be no more sustenance from that body. I could feel him holding me up. That's when I saw all the bruises on his chest from the paddles, massive black and blue swirls. I wondered what in hell they thought they were bringing back. How can I leave you here? I'll never play with that patch of hair on your chest. I'll never kiss the sweet place on your neck, behind your beard, or the Mick Jagger fullness of your lips. How can I say good-bye to those treasures? I thought I'd have their bliss for my whole lifetime.

Then there was nothing left to do but gather his things. We went to his room and took down all the crepe-paper streamers. We released the balloons in the parking lot, giddy in our shock, laughing "Catch them, Johnny! These are for you!" as they floated above the hospital walls and faded into starlight.

All night, people gathered at the house. John's presence was so strong, the love was so palpable in every room, that most of us were months away from believing he was totally gone. There is a heightened sense when death is so near, and we stayed up till dawn, talking about him.

"He was a bearer of miracles."

"He was so utterly direct and clear and open-hearted."

"He was an incredible soul."

Three days later, one hundred people gathered in our house for the funeral service. Johnny's body had been autopsied and was awaiting cremation, but we went ahead because friends had flown in from all over the country. We held a Buddhist ceremony, burning his photograph and chanting him well wishes. Then, like an AA meeting, people spoke from the circle. It took two hours for everyone to empty out their feelings, and here are some of the sentiments which were expressed.

"I only knew John when he came to speak at my writing class," Karen Kenyon started. "I felt very touched by him and privileged to know him. The first time I ever heard him talk I thought that I'd never been around someone who was so completely honest, so completely down to earth, with such candor. One time he spoke about impermanence, and how that is a gift that is given when someone dies young. I think of that, and of his humor. I walked out to the parking lot with him and he pointed to his new car. He said it was financed by a Buddhist credit union, which meant you got to pay it back over your next lifetime."

An AA buddy remembered, "The first time I heard John share at a meeting, I said to myself, 'Holy tomoly, this guy is really something.' First I thought he might want to dominate the group, because his presence was so strong, but he was extremely genuine and caring. He had a lot of intuition and insight. He wanted to learn and contribute."

Paula, my receptionist, said, "I didn't know John very well. I met him through Nancy at work. The most vivid memory I have of him is that he called Nancy about five times a night. Instead of announcing him as John, I'd tell her 'The Hubala' was on the phone. He was like a teddy bear you could just hug. He was so gentle. The way he used to call her so many times, I thought he must really love her."

Allen, our elderly neighbor, added, "The thing that struck me most about John was the closeness we shared. We didn't get together very often, just for a minute here and there. I'll never forget the first time I met him out in front of our houses. He told me his name and I told him mine. As he walked away he said, 'Well, I'll see you, Allen.' It made me feel good that we were on a first-name basis right away. I appreciated that. Naturally, it was a shock to me when I heard his name was John Steinbeck. I had to think that over for about thirty seconds and I called him John from then on."

Then Thom spoke. "John and I came in like Twain and his comet. It never occurred to me that we wouldn't go out together. I think he'd be unhappy if we didn't get the joke. He's been practicing for this for as long as I remember. We'd better take up a collection for his parents the next time around because they're going to need all the help they can get.

"I don't remember a time in my life without having him. We've counted a lot of coup and we've never been done in, never lost a battle. I'm going to miss him. We used to have a lot of codes, shorthand for how things were going. When it was time to lick honey off the razor blade, one of the things he was perfect at, the codeword was, 'Say farewell to all my friends on shore.' For him, I say farewell. He loved you all, he needed you all, as much as we needed him. He loved the illusion. I'm proud of him. I'm prouder of him than any human being in the world. Hello John."

Megan was next. "The first time I saw John, it was instant recognition. I felt like I had seen him so many times before. I'll never forget every day I spent with him and every day I was apart from him. He'll remain forever in my heart. I can feel him walking behind me and protecting me and holding me and guiding me. I love him. I can feel his little hands in my hands and I don't have to say good-bye because he's always right here and he'll always be right here."

"Finding Johnny dead at the hospital was the worst thing that's ever happened to me," I said. "I've always expected it. He had nine lives and we were on his tenth. It's something we've all known, that he was too precious to be in our lives for a long time. I'm so grateful for every day I spent with him.

"When we got back to the house, Megan said, 'Mom, it seems so easy. It just happened so easily.' I feel like he's going to be with all of us forever in our hearts and in our wisdom. He loved and valued every person in this room. He knew there's a place where he could work on a higher, deeper level, where he could impart more truth, and I think that truth will come through us. It's not like we need to let go of John and forget him. We need to listen and carry him in our hearts. He was a truly holy being and this is a very dark time, with the Gulf War starting.

"I'm really scared and I want people to call me. Don't let me be alone. He filled our hearts with laughter and love, especially in the last three years when he was sober."

An old friend from Boulder said, "John and I shared something very precious. The number- one thing in his life is his beloved wife, Nancy. He shared her so beautifully. I never knew a man who loved his wife and told everybody and taught every man he came in touch with how to treat a woman like John did. He was such a good dad. He was the best husband and companion for his wife. I will miss him so much."

Another friend said, "John was one of the funniest people I've ever known. I loved him because his mind scared the shit out of me and I could count on him for that. Whatever exchange we had, I could count on that he would touch me deeply or terrify me. They were both really great feelings because they reflected his ability to eat life for breakfast. The thought of not having that piercing honesty around is hard to live with."

Then Michael spoke. "A lot of feelings are coming up for me. I've been thinking about all the good memories, all the stuff I ever did for him and all the stuff he ever did for me, all the things we did together. He was my best friend. I've never met anyone with such power and compassion. He could dazzle me with his wisdom. He used to brag to me, but I knew it was true, that he knew just about everything about anything. He'd tell me that in the hot tub. If anyone else ever told me that, I'd think, Man, that cat is full of shit. But I believed him.

"I'd look forward to the nights when I came home and he'd always have the hot tub ready for me. It was kind of like the guru sitting underneath a shady tree, and you go to mountaintop to meet him. I'd meet my guru in the hot tub, and his big fat guru belly would be there kickin' it and it was like instantly he'd know what was going on with me. I could tell him about my problems from girls to school to friends and he could always get me out on a good note. It was like he'd been there. He could relate ten times over and he'd share his solutions. I'd say, 'You are a fucking guru, man. You are God.'

"We've been looking at the photo albums and every part of his personality is there; no picture is the same because he had so many aspects about him. Actually, he gave me the runaround about everything. You couldn't slip much past him. His friends were my friends and he always told me how much he loved my friends."

One of the teenage boys laughed when he remembered, "John once called me a gratuitous motherfucker." His brother went on to say, "John turned our lives upside down. He was an example of tremendous will, of the fight to be free, to be outrageous just for the sake of being outrageous. He always threw himself out there and we stood around with our jaws on the floor. He had aggressive sides, scary sides, but his heart was so gentle. Sometimes he'd stay with us when I was little. He'd sleep outside on a lawn chair in the summer. I'd ask him why and he told me he just liked to be out there. He's out there now."

Another of Michael's friends said, "I remember the time I took Mike for a ride on my motorcycle. The next time I was at the house, John met me at the door. He put his hand on my shoulder and his face real close to mine and said, 'Say, Matt, the next time you take my son on your motorcycle without a helmet, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to get a can of gasoline and pour it all over your bike and then I'm going to light a match and watch that sucker burn.' Then he grinned and said, 'You got it?' I got it."

A friend who'd lost a child said, "John listened in a special way that most people don't do. He talked in a special way that most people don't talk. He filled my heart with so much warmth, and so did his family. I know that he's here with all of us, but I hate death, and I hate that I'm not going to see him walk out of his office and feel the cuteness about him." Another friend remembered the black powder bombs Johnny loved to explode in our backyard. "One time I was over visiting them and John set off several underground charges which left large holes in the lawn. The Boulder bomb squad showed up, complete with fire trucks. John was very polite with them. He took them around to the back and showed them the holes and asked if they'd seen the movie Caddyshack. He told them he had a gopher problem and had gotten the idea of blowing them up from the movie. The bomb squad guys were fascinated, though you couldn't tell if it was by the theory or by John's name. Anyway, they left without giving him a citation, so they must have bought his story. By the way, there are no gophers in Boulder!"

Gesar Mukpo, Rinpoche's teenage son, said, "My memories of John are as a young kid. There were never any problems when I came over to play with Michael. He never made it difficult for me. It was always fun to be around him. He always let us do pretty much whatever we wanted. He didn't give us a hard time about how crazy we were. He didn't need to take control because he had control. He died being who he was, fearless. He wasn't afraid at all. I want to say, 'Good job!'"

And Thom concluded, "I'd like to thank you all for coming, if only because I needed the healing. I couldn't do it by myself. I think we all need it, to the degree that we miss him. We want to keep intimately that part of him that affected each of us, affected by his recovery, by his humor. A lot has been lifted off me in the last two hours that I thought I was going to have to carry for a long time. I wasn't looking forward to it at all. Now that I know I can sucker you guys into the other half of the job, it makes it a lot easier."

Our old friend Denault Blouin wrote this poem the day after Johnny died. It is based on the Buddhist reminders we chant with each prostration:

This precious human body, free and well favored, is difficult to earn, easy to lose. Now I must do something meaningful. The world and its inhabitants are like a bubble. Death comes without warning. This body will be a corpse. At that time the Dharma will be my only help. I will practice it with exertion. Just like a feast before the executioner leads you to your death, I will cut desire and attachment and attain enlightenment through exertion.

GATE (which means "Gone" in Sanskrit)
In Memory of John Steinbeck IV


DEATH
8:30 A.M.: Standing in the unemployment line,
Thinking of you

COMES
And you're gone:
Rocket man
With your lazy rolling voice
Stupendous indulgences and generosities
Huge storehouse mind
And impossible neurotic upheavals

WITHOUT
Matt, 14, bursts into tears when he hears-
"This is the first person I've ever known who's died."

WARNING
But there are signs:
Famous alcoholic father,
Born-in-the-blood addictions
Magnified by late 20th-century maha-cravings

Liver literally rusting away
Chi splitting surgery
Back-breaking pain, walking with cane,
Not ever getting all better.

This pain never goes away
Can drive a man to drink and drugs,
Can wake him up, did.

You finally
Learned to let go
Embrace Big No
Every day

Not another drop
Self-intoxication stopped
Sober, boring path followed step by step
To cut root cause
And live with incurable loss.

In this raw war-fire wind
You were born and died in
Best medicine: compassion

Good-bye, John

Halifax
February 8, 1991


John Palmer, the director of the cult classic Ciao, Manhattan, starring Edie Sedgwick, sent this from Maui after hearing about Johnny's passing. They met in London during the early seventies. Palmer was so intrigued with John's stories about Vietnam that he promptly went over there in search of Sean Flynn -- to no avail.

It's a funny thing about people. The effect they have on you. Who they are in the world. How they are in the world. Steinbeck was one of those people. One of those people who had an effect. We used to call him Steinbeck. And of course that had extra meaning beyond the obvious. I mean, in John's case, Steinbeck was not just the name. It was the name. A name much much more than the imputation that we do when we call people by their last names. He was ... Steinbeck. Yet, no confusion with the father. No need for differentiation. It was all packed in. The father, the son, the war, the booze, the pot, the women. John was Steinbeck, pure and simple. On his own. In his own right. In spite of it all. Steinbeck.

And you loved him. Not adoration. But some kind of love he brought out. Love beyond the draw of the name. Beyond the absolutely soft, ordinary person beneath the persona. You just plain loved him because he had guts. Guts with a brain. Guts with words. Guts with heart. Guts that could get down.

John Steinbeck the Fourth was one complex cookie. You wanted him to like you because he was real and because he wouldn't put up with any bullshit and yet he understood your bullshit and accepted you for what was good in you. He knew what good was. Even when he couldn't do good and that further magnified his charm. Especially, because he was high grade, once removed. Closer than the real McCoy.

Of course, the fact that he was in binary orbit with a star, his silent star, made him all the more fascinating. And he knew it. He played with that in no-ego. Perfectly. As if the torment of all that was tedious. Like a cat playfully batting a mouse. Humor, the dance. You knew it. He knew it. Unspoken speech.

Now the fact that John had carried an M-16 and knew how to use it and did, the fact that he could describe the trip a grenade takes across a wide green valley high as a kite -- slow-mo smoke on the other side. Stoned. Puff. Made him all the more fascinating. This was like getting high with Humphrey Bogart. Cigarette smoke, whiskey. And of course, the voice. The same kind of voice we all heard in the movies. Like when they first got those huge baritone speakers at the Strand in the fifties. John had the voice. Wraparound deep. Comforting and a little slowed down. Like the beginning of a hallucination. Totally clear. Enunciatively perfect. But still on the doorstep to oblivion. Just outside.

The fun of knowing him was what the magic was doing to you. Not just in the moment. That was the material. All the experiences needed material. But what was really going on had something to do with authenticity. The special truth that knows death at maximum risk. There's plenty of that around but very little that knows the lines and what they mean at the same time. John had all that going and knew it and wasn't particularly interested. This is one of the reasons he was a man's man.

Have you ever been in a tunnel on a train when another train was coming in the other direction? That's how John and I met. Imagine the noise and the excitement and then somehow it dissolves into a view from the side. His train is like a subway and everything is dark except his car. He's inside and walking around and then he comes to the window. That's kind of how we met and then it was gone. Then the noise comes back.


***

Several days after the ceremony, I was sitting in John's office pouring through the archives, starting to write this book. Feeling overwhelmed, I burst into tears. Johnny, if you really are with me as you promised when I finish your work, show me a sign. I cannot do this alone. There was only one window, and it faced the house next door. I figured all he had to work with was that and the telephone, but I was adamant. If I didn't get a sign, it was over between us.

Suddenly, in the patch of sky above the neighbor's house, a huge bouquet of balloons floated by. There must have been thirty of them, sailing way up high over the coastline. I was thrilled. I got up to watch them from the deck, closing the door to his office, on which Johnny had recently tacked a little poem by Po Chu-i.

THE KARMA OF WORDS

He gradually vanquished the demon of wine
And does not get wildly drunk
But the karma of words remains
He has not abandoned verse.


As a Tibetan Buddhist, I am very disappointed in this story. Despite all of John's experience with Buddhist teachings, he failed to get the core lesson: "Self and Others." He certainly didn't care about himself, and he didn't care enough about the persons closest to him to try and bring them happiness, much less people outside his family and in the larger world. He eventually quit drugs and alcohol only because he had taken his body to the absolute limit, and could take it no further. To think what a man with the name of "Steinbeck" could have done to promote the general welfare of humanity. What a waste of human life! His friends and family want to depict him now as a "truly holy being," an "angel," a "god," a "guru," hoping for some Rosicrucian enlightenment. But this man was none of these things. Pitiably, he was a hungry ghost.

-- Tara Carreon

Image
Scroll of the Hungry Ghosts (Gaki-zoshi), Late-Heian Period (Late-12th Century), © 2011 Kyoto National Museum.
Hungry Ghosts, by Barbara O'Brien: "Hungry ghost" is one of the six modes of existence. Hungry ghosts are pitiable creatures with huge, empty stomachs. They have pinhole mouths, and their necks are so thin they cannot swallow, so they remain hungry. Beings are reborn as hungry ghosts because of their greed, envy and jealousy. Hungry ghosts are also associated with addiction, obsession and compulsion. The Sanskrit word for "hungry ghost" is "preta," which means "departed one." Many schools of Buddhism leave food offerings on altars for hungry ghosts. In the summer there are hungry ghost festivals throughout Asia that feature food and entertainment for the hungry ghosts.
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Re: THE OTHER SIDE OF EDEN: LIFE WITH JOHN STEINBECK

Postby admin » Fri Mar 18, 2016 8:10 pm

Timeline

1902 : John Ernst Steinbeck born February 27 in Salinas, California.

1939 : Grapes of Wrath published.

1943 : Steinbeck marries Gwyndolyn Conger.

1944 : Thom born August 2.

1945 : Nancy Lenn born June 18. Cannery Row published.

1946 : John born June 12.

1948 : Gwyn files for divorce which is final in 1949.

1950 : Steinbeck marries Elaine Scott.

1952 : East of Eden published.

1953 : John hospitalized for codeine addiction at age seven.

1954 : John sent to Eaglebrook boarding school.

1959 : Steinbeck spends nearly a year at Discove Cottage in England working on Morte d'Arthur.

1960 : Steinbeck returns to United States, embarks on cross-country journey for Travels with Charley.

1961 : Steinbeck travels to Europe with his sons. Winter of Our Discontent is published.

1962 : John returns to boarding school at Hebron Academy. Nancy attends San Francisco State College. Steinbeck awarded Nobel Prize for Literature. Travels with Charley published.

1963 : Gwyn moves to Palm Springs with John and Thom. John works as a disc jockey.

1964 : John is drafted. Nancy enters University of California at Berkeley.

1965 : Steinbeck takes John to meet LBJ at the White House.

1966 : John goes to Vietnam where he becomes a journalist for Armed Forces Radio and Television, and a war correspondent for the Department of Defense. Steinbeck visits him there. Nancy graduates UC Berkeley with a degree in philosophy. She becomes a counselor at the San Francisco Juvenile Hall where she meets her future husband, Paul Harper.

1967 : John returns to the United States. He is arrested for possession of marijuana; charges are dropped. He testifies in front of the Senate Armed Forces Subcommittee on Drug Abuse as an expert on marijuana. He writes "The Importance of Being Stoned in Vietnam" for the Washingtonian.

1968 : John returns to Vietnam to found Dispatch News Service. John wins an Emmy for his work on the CBS documentary The World of Charlie Company. Nancy and Paul leave San Francisco to live on a mining claim in northern California. Steinbeck dies December 20 in New York City.

1969 : John returns to California and writes In Touch, which is published later that year. Nancy and Paul immigrate to British Columbia, where daughter, Megan, is born June 17.

1970 : John returns to Vietnam. He lives on Phoenix Island with the Coconut Monk. Daughter Blake born October 5 in Saigon.

1971 : John returns to New York and meets Trungpa Rinpoche. Paul and Nancy move to Mexico.

1972 : Nancy's son, Michael, is born December 1 in Guanajuato, Mexico.

1973 : Nancy and Paul found a commune in British Columbia, Canada. John travels overland to India.

1975 : John and Nancy meet in Boulder, Colorado. Gwyn Steinbeck dies in Boulder.

1979 : John and Nancy fall in love at a Buddhist Seminary held at Chateau Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada. Nancy separates from Paul Harper, divorce final in 1980. John moves to Nancy's home in Boulder. Commemoration of Steinbeck postage stamp.

1980 : Nancy's parents buy them a home. Gwyn's mother dies.

1981 : John, Nancy, and Megan on the set of Cannery Row in Monterey and Los Angeles. Billy Burroughs Jr. dies of liver failure.

1982 : John and Nancy marry on March 6.

1983 : After the death of Nancy's mother, John, Nancy, Megan, and Michael embark on a round-the-world journey.

1984 : The Steinbecks return to Boulder. John diagnosed with hemochromatosis.

1986 : Nancy's father dies. John has back surgery for a ruptured disc.

1987 : The Steinbecks move to La Jolla, California. Trungpa Rinpoche dies.

1988 : John starts writing his autobiography.

1989 : John interviewed on Charles Kuralt's Sunday Morning show for the fiftieth anniversary of Grapes of Wrath. Abbie Hoffman dies.

1990 : John ruptures a disc in his spine. Diagnosed with diabetes.

1991 : John undergoes back surgery and dies in Encinitas, California, on February 7.
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Re: THE OTHER SIDE OF EDEN: LIFE WITH JOHN STEINBECK

Postby admin » Fri Mar 18, 2016 8:10 pm

Bibliography

Burroughs, William. Naked Lunch. New York: Grove Press, 1992.
Cassady, Carolyn. Off the Road: My Years with Cassady, Kerouac and Ginsberg. New York: Penguin, 1991.
Conrad, Joseph. Lord Jim. New York: Dover, 1991.
De Molt, Robert. "Legacies." Steinbeck Quarterly 2, no. 3-4 (1991).
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. Perigee, 1959.
Huxley, Laura. You Are Nor the Target. Metamorphous Press, 1995.
Harvey, Andrew. The Direct Path. New York: Broadway Books, 2000.
Kerouac, Jack. Dharma Bums. New York: Penguin, 1955.
--. On the Road. New York: Penguin, 1958.
Mann, Thomas. Death in Venice. New York: Dover, 1995.
Miller, Alice. Thou Shalt Not Be Aware. New York: Meridian, 1991.
Norwood, Robin. Why? A Guide to Answering Life's Toughest Questions. Deerfield Beach, Fla.: Health Communications, 1997.
--. Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change. New York: Pocket Books, 1991.
Paul, Alexander. Suicide Wall. Tigard, are.: PakDonald Publishing, 1996.
Ram Das, Baba. Be Here Now. San Cristobal, N.Mex.: Lama Foundation, 1971.
Steinbeck, John. East of Eden. New York: Penguin, 1992.
--. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 1992.
--. Once There Was a War. New York: Penguin, 1994.
--. The Red Pony. New York: Penguin, 1993.
--. Tortilla Flat. New York: Penguin, 1995.
--. Travels with Charley. New York: Penguin, 1981.
Steinbeck, John IV. In Touch. New York: Knopf, 1969.
Trungpa, Chogyam. Born in Tibet. Boston: Shambhala, 2000.
--. Meditation in Action. Boston: Shambhala, 1996.
Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1979.
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