I do not have a good sense of direction. I'm usually good with maps, unless I have them upside down. And grateful now to have GPS.
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We were put on a bus, blindfolded, and driven around country roads this way and that.  At some point, groups of four were let out of the bus, given a map, and told to find our way back.  We were all fifth graders in East Lansing public school and this was part of the curriculum for our week at Clear Lake Camp–an exciting and scary prospect for newbies like me.  The blind drop-off was perhaps the most daunting.

At last it was our turn.  My group of four stood apprehensively, abandoned in the middle of the dusty road, with an unmarked T intersection not far away and only woods and fields in sight. I looked at the map, and the solution seemed impossibly simple.  If we just turned at the intersection, the road would lead us directly back to camp, maybe half a mile away.  No one else had a better idea, so we followed my suggestion and were the first ones back.

Maybe that wasn’t much of a challenge, but over the years I have thanked whatever mix of genetics and evolution makes it possible to carry locations in my brain.  Of course there is help from the position of the sun and visual landmarks like mountains and water, although I wouldn’t want to challenge a migrating bird or butterfly.  Maps also help.

I feel an almost physical need to know where, geographically, I am–and for that matter, genealogically, metaphysically, astronomically and relationship-wise. Maybe it has something to do with a sense of control over the vastness of existence.  One of the first things I want when traveling is a map, and I probably qualify as a “cartophile”.  Everything from hand-drawn sketches to ancient maps of the world, from historic ordinance maps of England and Scotland to globes with past and future solar eclipses–the number of maps in my house is ridiculous. We once bought another suitcase to cart home a large atlas of maps from the 1600’s.  The automobile associations also put out wonderful maps, as do local tourist services.  Although Google and car GPS have forever changed how we access geography and directions, there is still nothing like a good old-fashioned map at the right scale with the critical information.

Pre-GPS, Sally and I were driving from the Sierra Nevada to the Bay Area as night fell.  We were on some backroads, crossing the Central Valley, confident as we sped through the little towns toward I-5.  Maybe we were talking.  There were a few turns here and there, but we were both comfortably on the right road heading west, although it seemed that I-5 was elusively far.  Suddenly, Sally asked if that little bar with the neon sign that we passed on the right didn’t look a lot like the one we passed on the left a half hour earlier?  We tried to look at a map in the dim car light, tried to look for stars overhead, but it was clear that our inner maps were both 180 degrees off and we were steadfastly headed east.  The more smug you are in your orientation, the harder it is to recalibrate.  And how could we both have had our sense of direction fail us so?  We were humbled.

In the end, we are not in as much control as we might like to think we are.  But maybe that is why it is so satisfying when you set a course and actually end up at your goal.

 

 

 

 

As long as I know where the lake is, I know I am headed east.
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For three weeks I lay immobilized...
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Although I don’t look forward to going to the dentist, I do appreciate the importance of the work–maybe because I have always had dental issues, from cavities to crowns, partial plates and bridges to implants, orthodontia to tooth extraction.  Much of it is thanks to genetics, which forgot to provide me a full secondary set of teeth and even now has left a few baby teeth hanging on by a thread.  I envy those with naturally beautiful teeth but have been fortunate to be able to get dental care to make the best of the situation.

When I worked in the community health centers in Alameda County, it was a great source of pride that we included dental care services—of course cobbled together with great difficulty through grants and special programs.  In fact, my clinic ended up taking over the dental services at the local children’s hospital because it was such a money-loser for them, and we could leverage other resources.  I learned about how preventive care for children could change lives, and how poor dentition could affect overall physical and emotional health at all ages.  Heart disease, diabetes control and poor pregnancy outcomes have all been linked to oral health;  trying to find job or a relationship with diseased and absent teeth is a real challenge.  And yet dental care is at best an “add-on” for most health systems, and very expensive to access. Nothing establishes your social standing as visibly as bad teeth.

There are historical reasons why medical, dental, eye, maternity, public health and mental health services evolved in their silos, but it is pretty clear that true health is more holistic than that (and includes the “social determinants of health”).  In my utopian fever dreams, there is no doubt that everyone would get the dental care they need.

We were looking for somewhere to buy a boom box to play CD music for our elopement ceremony in Niagara Falls, and someone suggested Canadian Tire.  Incredulous, we had to ask why an automotive service center would have such a thing and were met with an amused look and explanation that the store carried much more than tires.  And indeed, it had apparently morphed into a big box with garden center, sports equipment, kitchen items, furniture, cleaning supplies, seasonal items, and electronics. They also gave us Canadian Tire dollars with each purchase.

The dollars sported the face of a man with moustache and plaid tam, connoting a thrifty Scot (google tells me he was “Sandy McTire”).  They came in small denominations of a few cents up to a dollar, a tiny fraction of the value of your purchase. They were accepted like cash at the store and might add up if you spent a lot.  Once we moved to Canada, we had a place on top of the microwave that accumulated small stacks of these dollars, which we generally failed to redeem, and turned out to be not worth as much as we hoped anyway.

One day at checkout, I got no Sandy McTire money.  Instead, I was offered a plastic card that I only had to activate and it would magically store all my rewards.  It was the 21^st century after all.  I took the plastic and groused to myself about the death of cash, the tracking of every purchase, the targeted advertising, the information my phone gives constantly, the loss of privacy.  I still remember COINTELPRO, know of the evils of power and distrust big data.

And so, in my own quixotic way, and not that it makes any rational difference, I have never activated that card.

 

Laughing Gas and the Chestnut Tree

When I was growing up we lived on a shady street in the Bronx.   Several doctors and dentists had offices on our block and my dad was one of them.   He was a GP who practiced on the ground floor of our three-story house and we lived on the two upper floors  “over the store”.   (See The Puppy in the Waiting Room and The Corpse in the Office)

For many years a dentist named Ben rented space in my dad’s office.  Ben was a wonderfully kind and gentle man,  and he and his wife Eleanor became my folks’ lifelong friends,  and Ben of course became our family dentist.

Then at some point Ben took a larger office down the street in a house with a beautiful chestnut tree in the front yard.

One day when I was 9 or 10 I went down the block to Ben’s office for my dental appointment and he told me I had a cavity – my first!   He said he’d give me laughing gas to relax me while he filled it.

Laughing gas sounded like fun and I sat still while his nurse put a mask over my nose.   Then Ben told me to lie back in the chair and look out the window at the chestnut tree.

I did,  and Ben filled that first cavity.

Ben was my dentist until I moved out of my parents’ house,  and over the years I’ve had a few others.  All of them have been nice guys and fine dentists  –  but none gave me laughing gas,  or had a beautiful chestnut tree I could see from the dental chair.

And none will ever be as dear to me as Ben.

– Dana Susan Lehrman

 

Steve Martin’s role as the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors captured how many of us feel about going to the dentist.
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Where to begin? MyRetrospect.com has been a huge part of my life since the autumn of 2015. Patti and John Zussman, dear friends since high school, began discussing their idea with me for a baby-boomer community of writers who would share their memories and thoughts  by writing stories to prompts provided by the Zussmans. They hoped to grow it into a huge network of authors. They had big dreams and a good contact list. They are excellent writers themselves, but wanted amateurs like me, who just like to share life stories, to also write. They knew I had taken the Chilmark Writer’s Workshop on Martha’s Vineyard several times and they listened closely as I talked about how that group was run. Years later, I discovered they took cues from our discussions. They recruited me early in their process to be a beta tester to write to their first prompt: “What We Ate” (inspired by the inevitable first writing assignment on the Vineyard: “Dinner at our house was…”). Here is my first story for the site, which was published on December 14, 2015.

Brisket

I never stopped writing. I wrote every week a prompt went up, sometimes even when a prompt was repeated I found something new to say (though not always, as was the case with that first story; you can tell by the dates of the comments). I’ve written 323 stories, and since early in the site’s existence, I’ve read and commented on most of the other stories as well. I write weeks ahead (prompts are provided four weeks in advance) so that I can go back and edit, edit, edit. I would like to believe that I’ve become a better writer over the years, though I tend to write in a conversational, personal style.

Having just returned from visiting London for my granddaughter’s first birthday, I was told there would also be a 70th birthday present waiting for me upon my arrival. One day, David brought our granddaughter Rosa to our hotel and presented with this: a printed copy of my first two years’ worth of stories, bound up for my viewing pleasure – a thoughtful and impressive gift. It showed just how much MyRetrospect has impacted my life and everyone in my orbit knows it.

I’ve enjoyed writing my personal memoirs, but also to reflect on current moments in time.

This current prompt asks that we reflect about our experience with the site and share some of our favorite stories. With so many published stories, it was difficult for me tease out just a few favorites, so indulge me this trip down memory lane. For those of you who have read along through the years, thank you for your loyal following. I hope you approve of my choices.

The stories will not be in chronological order of writing, but rather, how they tell my story, beginning with my immigrant grandparents and in some cases, how meaningful they are to me, personally.

My Grandparents’ Story

Perhaps my favorite story was to the prompt “Family Myth”, about my young mother’s love of ballet and her encounter with the greatest ballerina of her era. While I believe this story is true, it has the aura of mythology.

Anna Pavlova

Telling the story of our younger child’s struggles and how my husband and I prepared him (now her; she transitioned, but that is a different story) to go to college, and the weekend we dropped Vicki off at Brown was a heartfelt tale.

A Long, Hot Goodbye

A more reflective prompt asked us to talk about faith, what it means to us personally. I pondered about this prompt for a long time; it became intertwined with my intense love of singing.

What is Faith?

A prompt several years ago asked us to write about art and art museums. Are you kidding me? Art is central to my existence. I wrote three stories for that prompt, since I’ve gone to art museums my entire life, have been involved with the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis for 33 years and we have collected art in some form for 46 years. I had a lot to say, but the following story was about a favorite undergraduate experience during my senior year at Brandeis.

An Afternoon With Mrs. Jack

We discussed politics on the site as well. I wrote this story years ago, but it infuriates me to read it now, in the wake of the Dobbs decision. It was difficult enough to live through it in 1971.

Planned Parenthood Before Roe v. Wade

The National Music Camp (now, Interlochen Arts Camp) in Interlochen, Michigan was a formative part of my life. I made life-long friends there, loved my classes and teachers, particularly Dude Stephenson, who directed us in the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta every summer to our great pleasure. We were bereft when he died and I wrote a story about him to the prompt “Gifts” at the end of 2018. We lost Dude five years ago this week.

Simple Gifts

Patti and John decided to shut down Retrospect (I think they discovered that “Retrospect” was already taken, so they used “MyRetrospect” instead, but I frequently refer to it as Retrospect, since that’s what they called it when they first spoke to me about it) at the end of 2018.

I wrote a final story that went live at the end of December, 2018, a tribute to my friends, their ambition and hard work. It covers much of the same ground as the beginning of this story. After that, I printed out all the stories and took a break.

The site lay fallow for several months, but one of our fellow writers, also a beta tester who had written from the beginning and loved writing every week, took over the challenge of running the site, along with three others. She bought the rights from Patti and John and the four new administrators have run it for almost four years, coming up with new prompts every week. The site came back to life at the beginning of March, 2019. What a wild ride these intervening years have been!

We owe a debt of gratitude to Suzy, first and foremost, and also to Marian, Laurie and Barbara, whose creativity and persistence have kept us going. Now bugs have crept into the software that even the technical people on whose platform we run can’t seem to figure out. So this may be our last story. We’ve had a great run and I’ve expressed a lot throughout the years.

The story that continues to move me came out of the protests from the summer of 2020; indeed the prompt was “Protest”. Let us move forward and carry on.

Listen, Learn, Change

I wish you all a good year ahead, whether writing, reading, thinking, or changing the world. Be kind and attentive. Adieu.