Before getting into the first of two memoir episodes I wrote last night (freeing my weekend for nothing in particular), I want to respond to a comment from Mystical2 (who was a dancer on Broadway–I’m awestruck!).  She is the latest of many who have asked or remarked on how I remember all this detail after so many years.

I have tricks.  One of them is something many people do unconsciously.  There is a gesture or posture that is almost universally recognized as meaning one is concentrating or trying to remember something.  A thumb is placed on the temple and the middle finger placed over the third eye in the center of the forehead.  This gives a little boost to the neuroelectricity in the brain.  Using both hands doubles the boost.

Then there are the techniques that can be lumped together in the category, “shamanic”.  They involve altered states of consciousness.  In some cases it is similar to hypnotic regression or meditative reverie.  Many books, tapes, CDs, videos, etc., exist that teach and assist these techniques.

State-bound memory is one of the reasons we frequently, for example, forget our infancy and early childhood when we enter puberty.  Our brainwave patterns change as we mature, and memories stored in one state are not always retrievable in different states.  If you want to think like a child or recall early events in your life, listen to a tape or CD that entrains your brainwaves to the Theta range.  Little kids are primarily in Theta, and that brainwave state is conducive to personal insights and emotional healing.

Besides drumming and rattling, shamans use herbs and potions to alter their consciousness.  I was coming up blank on much of my biker and speed freak years until I got some chemical assistance.  I was SO glad when that was done–the sacrifices I make for my art!! *tsk tsk*

Anyone interested can find more info on brainwaves and shamanism, with links to sources for the psychoactive sounds that can help you attain the altered states at my “shaman” website.

Anchorage, Autumn 1973

I liked and respected all the other staff members at Open Door Klinic.  I was somewhat surprised that they all seemed to like and respect me, too.  My self-esteem had taken many hits over the course of my life.  I’d failed as wife and mother.  I’d been an outlaw biker, a thief, convicted felon, and was accustomed to receiving disapproval and ostracism for that.

Another thing that contributed to my inferiority complex was my being a high school dropout.  Although I’d gotten my GED, and had the proctor tell me that my score indicated a post-grad level of education, I tended at that time to devalue the education I’d gotten from public libraries under my own tutelage.  This is not true for me now; I’m an autodidact and proud of it.  When I found the Degree-Free SIG in Mensa, it started moving my attitude in that direction, but I wasn’t there yet when I arrived in Anchorage.

Of course the clinic staff all had training and long practice at supportive non-judgmental counseling.  That had to have colored the way they dealt with everyone, including me.  Even so, I felt accepted and appreciated by everyone.  Both of the other peer counselors became special friends to me and have had continuing roles in my life since then.

Mollie was a petite brunette with dancing eyes and a ready laugh.  Her sense of humor was sophisticated and ironic.  My first memory of her, as she breezed in for my first staff meeting, is a much different Mollie than the one she has become, but through it all she has been both lovable and admirable, sort of a steel teddy bear.  Back then, at Open Door, she wore a cape made of an army blanket, and a green beret with a red Chinese star sewn on.  Mollie’s mom was a social worker, and that had influenced Mollie in her choice of jobs.  Knowing her mom, you understood how Mollie turned out so sweet and strong.  She worked the swing shift, 4 to midnight, Monday through Friday.

Mollie will show up again in some future blogs, but for now I’m going to focus on Steve, who relieved Mollie at midnight, and whom I relieved each Saturday  morning.  Every weekend, I had coffee while Steve finished up the daily houskeeping:  vacuuming, dishwashing, etc., and briefed me on what was up in Anchorage over Friday night.  A few times, he was on the phone with a client when I arrived, and some of those times, I did the housekeeping while he continued to counsel his client.  The rest of the time, he would hand the client over to me, bring me a cup of coffee, clean house, and wait until I was done with the client to brief me.

Steve was the friend of my friend Mary’s boyfriend, the one who let me know I’d been hired at the clinic, before I received the official phone call.  I think Mary was hoping that we’d hook up, when she introduced us.  Steve’s a Leo, as confident and generous as they come.  He had grown up in an adoptive family on Kodiak Island.  He knew nothing about his parents.  He was a Golden Gloves boxer, and it was that fact that netted him a murder conviction for a bar-fight death that would have been manslaughter for a man whose fists were not deadly weapons.

When I met him he was on lifetime parole from a life sentence, and during the time we worked together, his pardon came through and his parole was vacated.  I’ll never forget the joy when he popped in on my shift waving that paper, dancing with everyone.  Justice always works slowly, but sometimes it does actually work.  In Lompoc, Steve had been stabbed, and lost a kindey over it.  One thing the two of us had in common was the peculiar sensitivity to toxins of those with compromised kidney function.  The only fear I ever saw Steve show was of colds and other infections.  He never got just a little bit sick.  I knew how that was.

There was some physical bond between Steve and me, but it wasn’t a passionate one.  We were comfortable together, hugging, touching hands.  A few times when the staff partied on Friday, I got a chance to get high with Steve, and we would get into long raps like those I used to get into at the U of Oregon’s Student Union fishbowl.  We were a diverse and imaginative group.  The ideas we kicked around covered the spectrum, in depth.  Steve and I tried a little experimental sex because we felt so good together, but it was only warm and comfortable, not enough fire for either of us.  We stayed friends.

When Steve’s parole officer had suggested that Steve apply for the new position as assistant to the newly-created Community Counselor’s office,  Steve thought that the idea of his working for the parole office was a joke. He told his P.O. that he knew another ex-offender who’d be perfect for the job.  He was right, I thought, when he told me about it.  That job was right up my alley.

There wasn’t any competition for the job.  There were other applicants, but I blew them out of the water.  I was overqualified.  State hiring was by exam similar to federal civil service, and the position for which I was applying was officially a Clerk-Typist III, a secretary.  The typing test was an important part of the exam, but typing was only a very minor part of the job.  I was out of the office at least as much as I was there, leaving my boss to answer phones and take messages for me.

To be continued….

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Note:  Today I found a gap in continuity in the left column Backstory, a blog that falls between Japan and the biker experience.  I fixed the gap.  The previously missing blog is the overdose link.

Anchorage, still 1973

There was always something going on around Open Door Klinic during the summer.  The tent community in the yard was stable in numbers because we couldn’t squeeze any more in.  There were new faces now and then as someone would either move on or go back home, and their space would be filled by someone new.  One couple from Arkansas were there for at least two months, trying most of that time to find a way to get back home.

Unlike the rest of the campers, these kids were not sleeping on the ground in a tent.  They had a pickup truck with a camper shell where they slept, parked in the yard beside the clinic.  They were just out of high school and recently married, and they were miserable in Alaska.  Some people love it here, and others hate it.  It is especially unfortunate when a couple comes here and finds out that one hates Alaska and the other one loves it.  At least both of those kids wanted to leave.  But their trip up the Al-Can Highway had been more expensive and rougher on their old truck than they had anticipated.  They were broke and the truck was broken.

They had a warm, loving relationship, those two, and it seemed to increase the distress for each of them seeing how homesick and discouraged the other was.  They would try to cheer each other up and end up crying on each other’s shoulders.  Each of the clinic’s counselors had spent hours with one or both of them, just listening to them vent or exploring thier options with them.  Finally someone, probably Jamie, who sat in on staff meetings even though he wasn’t officially on staff, decided to try to get them a blue ticket.

Blue tickets, in the old days, were the State’s way of getting rid of the indigent and troublesome.  They would buy them a ticket home.  The program had gone the way of the dodo and the archaeopteryx.  The state no longer provided funds for it, but the clinic was able to find a charitable organization that would pay the plane fare to get the lovebirds back to Arkansas.  They spent several days disposing of the bulk of their possessions from the camper, and they sold the truck for a couple of hundred dollars, and were gone.

Around my apartment, there was never much of anything going on.  I had some time to get back into reading books.  I got acquainted with the Z.J.Loussac Library and the Book Cache, both within walking distance of Open Door.  Working on weekends was wonderful:  five days a week off… well, four days off, because Wednesday was staff meeting at the clinic.

The first thing at each staff meeting was Kevin’s comments or questions on the contact reports we had turned in.  Every phone call or walk-in contact had to be followed up with a report.  Sometimes there were names to put in the report, often the clients were anonymous.  I filled out a report on the fight I broke up, and it got a comment at the staff meeting.  It got approving comments all around.  If anyone had been uncertain of my ability to handle the job, that relieved the worries.

When Kevin had finished the paperwork part of each meeting, he asked if anyone had any particular problems.  That signaled a shift from business meeting to group therapy.  We talked about work-related problems and about scheduling problems, and personal stuff, too.  There was easy intimacy among us, acceptance, a feeling of family.  I had no trouble sharing my feelings and personal problems with that bunch.  When I said I was pregnant and had been considering an abortion, my peers at the clinic asked searching questions and offered support.

I didn’t need a lot of time or thought to decide whether I wanted to terminate that pregnancy.  The stillbirth was still too recent; I couldn’t face the stress of another pregnancy either physically or emotionally.  I also did not want the bond with Stony.  Until then, when pregnancy occurred everything else in my life had been adjusted to that fact.  This time, the thought of having another child, of losing another child, presented risks I wasn’t willing to take. 

Then we started talking logistics.  I had two options:  Fairbanks or Seattle.  If I had been able to afford it, I could have gotten an abortion in Anchorage.  At that time (but not for very long afterward) the only hospital in Anchorage that would perform abortions would only do D & Cs, with general anaesthesia and an overnight stay in the hospital.  If I flew to Seattle or Fairbanks, or took a train to Fairbanks, I could get an outpatient suction abortion, avoid the risks inherent in the general anaesthetic, and pay a lot less in the process, even considering travel expenses.  Flying to Seattle was the least expensive option.

I didn’t even have to wait for another payday.  I was given an advance on my salary.  Early the next week, I flew to Seattle on the redeye, kept my appointment at the clinic near the airport, and went back to Anchorage that afternoon.  It was a liberating experience, even greater than slamming that car door on Stony and walking away dripping blood.  This pregnancy and the one before had occurred while I was on birth control pills.  When I had recovered from the abortion, I got fitted for an IUD.  That one found its own way out of me within three months, and I got fitted for a different shape, and for a diaphragm, just in case.

Not that contraception was an issue right at that time.  I didn’t have a partner, nor even any prospects.  And I wasn’t looking.  Oh, I was looking at what was available, not averse to starting up with someone new if the right chemistry developed.  I just wasn’t on the make.  I was on vacation, I guess.  I was enjoying my work and my solitude at home.  I was having more human contact, more intimate conversation with clients and staff at work, than I’d ever had before.  But I had no social life at all.

The clinic staff would often get together for parties on weekends.  I was always “invited”, but of course I had to work.  Sometimes I’d get calls from one or another of the staff, just checking up.  If I needed to consult with one of them, I could usually reach them.  Even though I was the only one on duty, I wasn’t alone.  There was a string of volunteers going through there at the time, too.  Most of them were graduate students in psychology or social work, doing the practicum for their masters’ degrees.

The lull didn’t last very long.  That fall I found another apartment and moved into it.  It was a cute, nicely furnished basement apartment on a quiet street with lots of trees, just a block from the Park Strip and within walking distance of work.  Shortly after the move, Steve, a co-worker at the clinic, told me that the probation and parole department had gotten a grant of Law Enforcement Assistance Act funds and were looking for ex-cons to go to work for them.  He thought I’d be perfect for the job.

to be continued….