My recipe box holds only one letter. It begins, "Dear Diana. I'm so glad Louise sent me this chain letter! I finally have a way to be in touch with you. Hope all's well. We're doing ok in spite of all the ups and downs that life tosses our way." Signed, "Love and good wishes, Tinker," the letter ends with a recipe for basil pesto (in response to the send-a-recipe chain). The basil pesto has nothing to do with the story below, but that it came from Tinker makes it a meaningful recipe in my recipe box.
In 1974 Tinker and her boyfriend, Benny, were living on a hippie commune not far from the little barn where I, my common-law husband, and our twenty-month-old son, Ela, were living. To help Dan and me patch what seemed to be a disintegrating relationship, Benny suggested a trip to Baja, California, for the five of us. Benny didn't know—no one knew; I didn't know—that the conjugal ties were fraying not from ordinary marital problems but from a storm of hallucinations and schizophrenic voices that would not diminish in a new location. I was already immersed in the in-and-out-of-reality, early stage of schizophrenia, and the hallucinations and voices would come right along with me.
Nothing went well on the trip. As at home, I was confused by my mental whirl of directions and commands, of voices, symbols, and signs. I kept being told, in the schizophrenic hallucinatory way, that I was supposed to do this and do that—clean the camper, cook dinner, put away the dishes that fell off the shelves when we made a sudden stop. Why didn't anyone else do those things? Why did it always have to be me? I was overburdened with work, yet the voices told me again and again and again to make the beds, fix the coffee, stock the shelves. In my confusion and despair at what was happening to me, I cried and cried. Sitting across from me at the tiny table in the camper truck, Dan begged me to tell him what the matter was. "Just tell me," he said, choking on his own tears. "Why are you crying? Talk to me." But I had nothing to say. Already deeply catatonic, I could say nothing.
Somewhere one day in some town we parked the truck on a side road. Tinker and Benny left to get something to eat. Dan, Ela, and I stayed in the camper to eat lightly on what I could find in the cupboards. Then the voices started: "Diana. Be careful. Dan is very angry. He's going to beat you, to within an inch of your life. You must get out of the camper. Leave. Quickly. Leave." It's symptomatic of how far from reality I was living that I would think seriously that Dan—Dan?!—would beat me. But I was not in my right mind. My mind had left.
I was terrified. I would have to handle things delicately. If I said the wrong thing, if I increased Dan's anger, he would start beating me. I would have to get out of the camper. Somehow I would have to escape.
And somehow I did. Anyone watching from the outside might have seen only that a woman stepped out of the camper and hopped into the front seat of the truck, but to me it was an escape. I was out of immediate danger, but I was terrified for my baby, in the camper with Dan, who, in my reality, was dangerously angry. I needed help, emergency help, right then, so I sat in the front seat behind the steering wheel, calling Benny, silently and powerfully, in my head. "Benny. Benny. Benny."
Benny had been a staff of comfort to me all those troubled months that I was sinking into schizophrenia. He had been an anchor, a stabilizer. He had been the boulder I sold on in floods of confusion. He never demanded explanations—I was incapable of giving any—but he sensed my distress and calmed me. Once, he told me, "If you ever need help, all you have to do is call. I'll be right there. Just call."
I needed Benny now, so I was calling him, as hard as I could. "Benny. Benny. Benny." And lo! Benny and Tinker came running around the corner, fast, their dinners in paper bags. Maybe they had somehow sensed trouble, or maybe Benny had sensed me calling. They arrived. Benny defused the situation with Dan, and we continued on our perilous road to Baja.
Not surprisingly, this trip did not work as a palliative for the struggling relationship between Dan and me. Schizophrenia doesn't respond to that kind of solution. Only after several years, two hospitalizations, anti-psychotic drugs, and an intense concentration of self-healing was I free of schizophrenia. My common-law marriage with Dan became a casualty of the illness, but not our friendship, and although I had disappeared from Ela's life without explanation just before he turned two, I worked hard to rebuild our relationship when I returned from the mental institution, and our closeness did not suffer. Tinker and Benny drifted apart. She married someone else and turned Christian. I don't know what happened to Benny. I don't think that if I called him how, he would hear me, But one time in my life he did hear me, and, in my tight little schizophrenic reality, he saved my life.
Recipe from this post: Tinker's basil pesto
Next week: "Box of Stories (5): Teaching School Children about Africa"
TINKER'S BASIL PESTO
Ingredients
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup pine nuts
3/4 cup Sardinia, Parmesan, or Romano cheese
3/4 cup olive oil
Preparation
Grate the cheese.
To make
Pound the basil, garlic, and pine nuts in a mortar until the mixture forms a thick purée. Add the grated cheese and mix or pound till the mixture is very thick. At that point add, very slowly, stirring constantly, the olive oil. When this mixture has become the consistency of creamed butter, put a film of olive oil over the top, cover it, and place it in the refrigerator or freezer.
To serve
Use about 2 tablespoons per serving mixed with equal parts of melted butter. If you serve the pesto with pasta, mix everything together before serving.
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