{Please note that this first chapter may be revised for publication but the essence will remain the same. Considering it is 35 pages I will break it up over the next few posts so it will be easier to read.}
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CHAPTER I
A DREAM COMES TRUE
I will arise and go now, for always
night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low
sounds on the shore;
While I stand on the roadway,
on the pavement's grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
" W. B. Yeats - "The Lake Isle of Innisfree"
My first memory of Odyssey House is a vivid recollection of the bright, warm, orange color of Dr. Judi's office walls. Who has orange walls in an office, I asked myself, as I looked around the room on my first day of employment at Odyssey.
Whatever else the choice of colors meant to me then or now the orange color was a symbol of Dr.Judi's uniqueness. The rest of the office was lined with multi-colored pillows and over-sized stuffed chairs conveying a mixed atmosphere of relaxed excitement.
Panning the room I noted two neatly arranged profesÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂÂsional diplomas belonging to Dr. Judi indicating that while only thirty three years old, she was both a psychiatrist and a lawyer. Moreover, she was now the Executive Director of Odyssey House, a therapeutic community treatment center for narcotic addicts, and my new boss. Gradually getting used to the fact that I was actually working there as a psychologist I felt totally immersed in the Odyssey atmosphere as if I had dived into a pool of lukewarm water in a Miami Beach resort.
The wall color glowed reminding me of the orange-yellow sun of my growing up. Although I had never been in this particular room, the colorful, sun-like ambiance made it seem absolutely familiar. Rarely in the last few years was I so exquisitely alive and complete as I felt that first day at Odyssey House, meeting with the rest of the staff in Dr. Judi's private office.
Her office instantly became my favorite space at Odyssey as I felt safe, secure, and, 'at home' in the ideal meaning of this phrase. Throughout my life I had unwittingly sought out such free zones I used as havens/sanctuaries/ oases to protect and nourish me in the midst of the chaos bubbling in me.
Stuyvesant Town, where I lived eight blocks to the north of Odyssey House, was such a safe harmonious haven, as previously had been the Columbia College campus, and New York City compared to the dissonance I experienced growing up in Miami Beach.
For a while these islands of harmony evoked feelings of at-one-ment and intensity both in relationship to me and with my surroundings. Feeling intensely alive became an increasingly rarer experience the older I got, certainly so, when compared with the frequency I felt it growing up in south Florida. It predictably accompanied my making personal discoveries. In the first eleven years of my life this special feeling repeatedly surfaced as life in those days seemed like an elaborate scavenger hunt. I never knew when I might run across the next clue that would ultimately lead to a discovery of some precious but illusive treasure, like at Easter, during the annual Easter egg hunt, searching for, and spotting but never claiming, the prized golden egg.
Knowing that special treasures existed, and that there were potential clues to finding them, I daily longed for the next one to appear. When occasionally finding one, I'd feel transformed. Now on my first day working at Odyssey House I felt as if I had once again discovered one of those long sought rare treasures.
Shifting my focus I noticed Judi's dress, a rain-bowed profusion of vivid blues, greens, and whites. Her colorful shift evoked an illusion of lightness, airy-ness, and ease that in time I realized was her calculated attempt to conceal her despised bulk. In my high school days, her thirty-three year old body would have been judged as zaftig. But Judi's repeated references to her obvious disappointment made it quite clear that she would have liked to have had it perceived as svelte.
Looking upwards, I found her face to be a notable combination of both cherubic doll-like qualities - full cheeked plus a curly-haired Orphan Annie look - and at the same time a forceful personality made so by her eyes flashing with a penetrating intensity reinforced by her demanding and commanding style of expressing herself. After welcoming and introducing me to the rest of the staff Judi's first words were: "We see ourselves best in the eyes of our brothers."
She then went on at length to acquaint me with the essence of the Odyssey House philosophy, aim, and method. "Reality is best understood when seen through many eyes."
Years later (1973) Judi would publish a book called We Mainline Dreams: The Story of Odyssey House in which she elaborated her ideas. For example in a chapter called the Group Method she stated: "Group is my reality….The great benefit of the group method is that it presents so many alternatives to the individual. He experiences that there are many acceptable ways of being a person, many kinds of equally acceptable ways of functioning. "(p.120)
I was in awe of Dr. Judi's style. She spoke fluidly, clearly, and cut right to the chase. She was also animated therefore entertaining not like most of the ultra serious professionals I had been accustomed to.
Finishing what she had to say, she assumed her characteristic position of stretching out on her favorite chaise lounge, acting the role of a female sultan holding court. I completed the missing context fantasizing two Nubian slaves fanning palm fronds over her outstretched body.
My sense of what I was witnessing was more like a scene from a movie about Cleopatra rather than an actual staff meeting in present time. In future time I would become increasingly aware that working at Odyssey was often experienced as more surreal than real.
Suddenly I felt wrenched back in time remembering sitting alone on the grass of the front lawn of my childhood home gazing into the pure blue sky watching the puffy clouds bending and shifting into unpredictable shapes.
I liked staring into the bright whiteness and the brilliant blueness feeling the warmth of the sun and the gentle breeze of the wind tenderly caressing my body. The colors, the wind, and the balmy atmosphere frequently had a combined effect of evoking an exquisitely pleasurable feeling of at-one-ment which I refered to as perfesion {a combination of perfect and easy}.
Whenever I experienced this special feeling time would stop and my perceptions would snap out appearing as intensely vivid and bigger than life. It was like the feeling one gets when coming out of a movie or play that has deeply touched them. Although only a work of fiction the production seems more real than life itself.
Looking closely at Judi's face I noticed a soft angelic smile spreading its radiating power into the room and into my eyes. Her eyes flashed as her smile turned into a frown and just as quickly changed back into a smile. My heart, flooded with excitement was beating wildly while time seemed to freeze. Without knowing it then I felt suspended between an overlapping of the present and the past.
I was at one with the room, the orange walls, the colors in Judi's dress, and especially with the smile on her face. I remembered having a parallel bigger-than-life feeling with my mother riding in the car when I was nine years old. As we rode together we passed a paint company displaying samples of their colors on what seemed like endless rows of racks baking under the intense heat of the Florida sun. The brilliant shimmering colors lit me up by their combined effect on my senses. I wanted the pleasure of that colorful intensity to last forever but the feeling soon faded as the last colored tile passed out of site.
I always tried hard to sustain these treasured positive feelings. But more often than not I was unable to prevent them from shifting into neutral at best or into painful negativity at worst. Thus it is accurate to say that my adolescence was characterized by an increasing imbalance of negative feelings overriding positive ones. Extremes of pleasure and pain followed each other around in a dizzy whirl like a snake compulsively biting its tail.
I drifted through my college years being and doing as best I could. In the intervening years between graduating Columbia College and coming to Odyssey House I did my best to get 'established'. But no matter how hard I worked I knew that in the center of my core the quality of my inner life had not essentially altered one whit since my high school days when I had first become aware of my confused inner reality. Thus at thirty years of age the quality of my inner life was much the same as it had been when I was twelve.
Then in the midst of this doom and gloom my life fortuitously took a turn for the better. First I was accepted into a Ph.D. program in Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling at New York University beginning in the fall.
Since I was tired of the stultifying dead end atmosphere working as a civil servant at New York State Employment; and, excited about going back to school in October, I longed to take the summer off but I couldn't afford it. Then I remembered I had been the house photographer five years earlier at the Lake Tarleton Club, a classy summer resort for singles in New Hampshire. Luckily the job was still available, presenting me with my second piece of good fortune, the opportunity of meeting Carolyn. Meeting her is when I got my third piece of good news.
Before spotting Carolyn at one of the large social gatherings held in the entertainment hall I had received the last of 10 rejection letters – this one from the University of Florida – my birth state. I had applied to be accepted in either the counseling or clinical psychology department. The letter – like the other nine – was personal. They seemed pained that they could not accept me as I was in the 96th percentile in English but was in the 40th percentile in math.
I was stunned. I thought surely my home state would at least accept me. So when I received this unexpected rejection I was thoroughly depressed. It was all I could do to get out of bed, get dressed, and go to the evenings' entertainment.
Looking over the sea of new faces I locked on Carolyn's face. She was drinking a martini and had her neck pulled back as she dangled an olive skewered on a tooth pick right over her open mouth. She was laughing enjoying herself immensely. I was drawn to and turned on by the angularity of her stretched neck, her lithe body, and her jovial free spiritedness. I made my way over to her table and introduced myself.
We experienced an immediate attunement. It was as if I had known her all my life and is probably the basis for some people believing in the preposterous concept of past lives.
Carolyn said she was a psychiatric nurse who was working with "the most fantastic doctor" in a therapeutic community rehabilitating drug addicts. This was the first time I heard about Dr. Judi and Odyssey House. We continued talking together getting to know one another. At the end of her week's vacation Carolyn said that maybe we could get together back in the city in the fall surprisingly adding that maybe something might open up for me at Odyssey.
The summer over I entered the Ph.D. program in October. Then one fateful day in November, 1967 Carolyn called to say that she had mentioned my name to Dr. Judi who in turn said she was interested in meeting me. She asked if I could meet with her that very afternoon. Without skipping a beat I said what time should I come? Finally my big break had come.
On a crisp cold afternoon in November, 1967 – I walked 8 blocks from my apartment on 14th street to Odyssey House off Second Avenue and 6th street. Moving closer to Odyssey, I felt surprisingly neutral noticing a large amount of ugly graffiti marring what should have been the plain blank walls of the buildings lining the sidewalk.
At the same time I felt impressed by the force of large jagged painted messages written in India ink scrawled on one wall, as if blaring: "Down With the Pigs! and Burn, Baby, Burn!" The power of these violent messages mixed with smelling an intriguing pungent aroma of illegal marijuana roused my curiosity as to what the public outcry {about such things as these} was all about.
I was unaware that I was witnessing some of the symbols of the historic sixties – a time of active challenging the status quo on a variety of fronts.
Once reaching 6th street I turned left soon spotting Odyssey House wedged between two brownstones in the middle of the block. Standing in front of its façade I paused like an ocean liner slowing down in a harbor deliberately preparing to dock.
I looked up, carefully observing the surface structure of a dark brown building of four floors. Next I noticed the steep set of nine brown steps leading up to two thick brown double doors. In front of the stairs was a gate and iron fence painted black with six garbage can tops chained to it.
Turning around I observed a five story red brick apartment house or perhaps it was a run-down hotel-directly across the street. I was never certain what it was. Turning back again, I noticed a brown car that uncannily matched the color of the walls of Odyssey House, parked then, and would continue to be parked, right in front of the stairs leading up to the entrance – always striking me as an odd image. Intuitively I knew that this particular brown car belonged to Dr. Judi, the Executive Director of Odyssey House.
Hesitating for one last moment feeling anxious and excited I had an illusion of time having stopped, imagining I was an actor being filmed on a movie set.
Serendipitously, snapping me back to present reality, were penetrating sounds of colorful birds chirping on the few trees lining 6th street. Their music evoked a peculiarly familiar experience like being on a beach - any beach - on a hot summer day with the light and the sounds of seagulls flying overhead through a cloudless azure sky. In this altered state of consciousness I felt as if I was fusing with the atmosphere. Its presence was alive for me and in it we were melting together. It was as if I had been heading for this very special and particular port of embarkation all of my conscious life and, indisputably, I was here at last.
Looking up the stairs once more I noticed a sign on the wall of the entrance saying, 'Fall-Out Shelter,' a reference to the building's (ludicrous) designation in the 1950's as an authorized bomb shelter in case of Soviet air attack. Later I thought that given Odyssey's expressed essence: 'Fall-In Shelter' would have been more appropriate.
Saying to myself, "OK, my friend, time to go," I pushed open the gate, walked slowly up the stairs counting each one, rang the bell, and was surprised by the pleasant greeting I received from the resident-receptionist. "Hello – I'm Willie. Welcome to Odyssey House. How can I help you?" My name is Gibbs. I'm here to see Dr. Judi. "Come with me."
After introducing himself as Willie, he led me into a large open living room filled with invitingly large and comfortable sofas. I noted extra large rainbow colored pillows scattered on the floor.
At the same time a few people who had come into the living room from another entrance rushed over as soon as they noticed me. They were friendly, asked my name, introduced themselves, and wondered why I was there. I felt an instantaneous attunement to them and the atmosphere. I hoped the interview would go well as just this little taste of the Odyssey atmosphere had turned me on.
The atmosphere in the living room where I had been for only a few moments was in marked contrast to the one that I had grown up in from age four until I went away to college at eighteen.
The essence of the living room of my childhood and adolescence was uncomfortable plastic covers supposedly to protect the precious materials from us "kids messing them up." Sarcastically, I referred to the "living" room of my past as the 'dead room.' How odd, I thought, to feel more at home in this unfamiliar living room at Odyssey House in five minutes than I had ever felt in my parents' home in eighteen years. Time stopped once again and I felt as if I was melting in this new, exciting, and colorful atmosphere.
Along with Dr. Judi, Carolyn, and me were the rest of the staff of ex-addicts. There were Larry and Laurie; the two Johnnies; Hal, Mike and Barry. They ranged in age from about twenty-one to thirty-three years old. All of them had been working with Judi for about a year. Experiencing unconditional acceptance by each and all of them and in accepting each and all of them in turn I thoroughly enjoyed the warm glow of instant rapport.
Now on my first day of employment at Odyssey, in Dr. Judi's private office, I once again was experiencing that delicious state of perfectly easy at-one-ment - (perfesion).
After the introductions we launched into our work. I was struck by the intensity of activity initiated both by Dr. Judi and the staff. "We can do anything" she said, "if we don't give into the twin enemies of inertia and passivity. The key to success is commitment. Some people walk the walk; others talk the talk."
Listening to her energetic talk I had the feeling that Judi was in a perpetual critically important race, and when she said walk she really meant run. But whatever she meant I enjoyed the excitement and was thrilled by the idea of racing with her.
I identified with Herman Hesse's character named the Steppenwolf. Like him, an outsider - I too had stumbled into my own magic theater. Now inside, impressed with the colorful atmosphere and the intense energy, I definitely wanted to stay and be part of the show. Capturing my attention was the clear, direct, and soft sound of Carolyn's voice as she expanded on Dr. Judi's hopes and dreams.
It soon became evident that Carolyn was the second in command at Odyssey even though she was not recognized as such. Whereas Dr. Judi often made lofty pronouncements Carolyn had a knack for simplifying what was said and translating it into practical details.
I was soon to observe that Carolyn played multiple roles for Odyssey House, Judi, and me. She was the indispensable stabilizing force at Odyssey: Judi's right hand 'man', chief advisor, mother confessor, empathic soother, self-appointed therapist, and sounding board. Associating to Steppenwolf once again, Carolyn instantaneously became my intellectual, political, and spiritual Hermine {the Steppenwolf's Soul mate}.
Curious to know the origins of Odyssey, and wanting to learn about Dr. Judi and the rest of the staff I was pleased that Carolyn invited me for coffee at the end of the staff meeting.
Carolyn said: "Previous to the 6thstreet House I had been working at Metropolitan Hospital as a psychiatric nurse assisting Judi who was a psychiatric resident. Because Judi was pregnant she was given permission to set up an experimental therapeutic community program on the addiction ward."
She continued: " The authorities gave Judi this particular assignment as it was judged to be lightweight; thus, expectations for Judi would be minimal. Apparently, they greatly underestimated Judi's zeal in implementing therapeutic innovations.When the hospital authorities discovered that the ward had been radically transformed into a therapeutic community for the so called 'hopeless' addicts {who now were flourishing} they insisted that it be turned back into its previous conventional structure. "
What happened then, I asked? " Believing they were on the cutting edge of a major treatment breakthrough, Dr.Judi and myself, along with a core group of heroin addicts resigned rather than submit to the dictates of the hospital administrators. Dr. Judi, with the help of a wealthy benefactor leased a dilapidated brownstone on 6th street, rapidly transforming it into Odyssey House."
Recounting these historical details with obvious pride Carolyn added that Odyssey has clearly come a long way.
Feeling exhausted I looked at my watch, amazed to see it was 12:30 A.M., ending the first of what would be countless 'marathon' staff meetings, many of them lasting the whole night. After walking back to Stuyvesant, greeting my new wife, I was eager to get to bed and instantly go to sleep as I felt surprisingly drained.
The meetings had the flavor of war briefings during which the staff discussed strategies for what we hoped would be effective interventions to cope with the multiple crises that could be expected to occur at any moment. If per chance things were relatively quiet we discussed our plans for expansion and consolidation.
TO BE CONTINUED
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