Re: CREDO CXLI Unusual Encounters

[Guest guest]

I shall forever treasure the visualization of Salvador and Gala Dali asleep in

the lounge along with the other sardines!

The journeys of life. Marvelous to enjoy. Even more marvelous to share. Thank

you for sharing this part of yours.

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> Subject: CREDO CXLI Unusual Encounters

> To: JUNG-FIRE , Negative-Capability

> Date: Sunday, May 22, 2011, 1:58 PM

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> CREDO

> CLXI

>     

> Unusual

> Encounters

>  

>          

>

> Recent cyber communications

> have mentioned

> Mann, Freud, and Adler, and I suppose I should mention my

> surprising brief

> connecting with all three in meaningful

> ways,

>            

>

> In the summer of 1949, my parents and I – then 16

> – spent the summer at

> the seaside Huis ter Duin hotel in Noordwijk, Holland . I

> was living one of the most exciting

> times of my life: tennis, riding, dancing, swimming,

> falling in love, being a

> naïve teenager, yet at the same time, writing poems that

> were being published in

> the Paris Herald Tribune that

> contradicted my outward persona.

> Mann and his wife and daughter (who later married

> W.H. Auden) were

> also guests. Apparently Mann was intrigued by the contrast

> of my persona and my

> poetry, and he asked my father permission to talk to me.

> That given, he invited

> me to sit with him in one of those hooded basket chairs on

> the terrace

> overlooking the sea. Mind you, I had no idea of who he was.

> I saw a slight

> middle aged gentleman with a grey

> moustache,

>            

>

> He began by telling me he had read my poetry and was

> curious to know if I

> wanted to be a writer? When I answered yes, he said that he

> was one himself and

> saw true potential in my gifts. Then he proceeded with some

> serious advice: Get

> up an hour earlier, start writing anything – just write

> at least 600 words – and

> make this a habit.  This was

> something he did himself daily and with positive results.

> Discipline was the

> key! He said that if I followed this rule, I would have a

> career and contribute

> something to the world. I followed his advice until I went

> back to boarding

> school in Switzerland . In the meantime WWII

> broke out! My career was interrupted, but the Muse hovered

> for some time until I

> married in 1945 and she then fled 20

> years!

>  

> Previous to this, in 1937, I had been utterly

> miserable in a boarding school in Providence , RI . A total

> misfit now again in uniform,

> having traveled in Europe and North Africa with

> my parents, never ever more than three months in one place,

> and those were spent

> in  European boarding schools. I was

> in the care of my wealthy “proper Bostonian†Uncle

> Foote and Aunt Doris

> living on Beacon Hill . My parents continued

> traveling as my father’s job selling Mergenthaler

> Linotypes to print newspapers

> required this. He was now their Vice-president for

> Overseas. I was headed for

> “coming out†as a debutante. My reaction was troubling

> to say the least, and my

> Aunt Doris decided I needed therapy. The answer was Dr.

> Ruth Adler, the daughter of the

> famous psychiatrist Kurt Adler. She was then a plump

> friendly woman with a short

> man’s haircut.

>            

>

> I liked her immediately because she understood the

> dichotomy I felt. I

> decided that the study of the psyche was right up my alley!

> One afternoon, we

> interrupted analysis and turned on the radio to hear King

> the Seventh of

> England abdicate his throne in order to marry the divorced

> commoner Wallis!

>

>            

>

> The time I spent with Dr, Adler was validating and

> comforting. I will

> always be grateful to her!

>  

>            

>

> I met Sigmund Freud’s

> grand-daughter, many years later in Bath , England when

> she attended a seminar I

> was giving in the 1970’s in the actual building of the

> Baths. She regaled us

> with wonderful descriptions of Onkel Ziggy who secretly

> supplied her with lemon

> drops he kept hidden in his jacket pocket. She adored him.

>

>            

>

> My weekend Workshop was given in the magnificent

> Regency building

> surrounding the mineral baths prized and built by the

> ancient Romans during

> their occupation. Their structure of the large rectangular

> pool is still

> surrounded by Roman artifacts. Above it stands the

> magnificent Regency building

> which houses drinking fountains, comfortable rooms and

> historic displays. My

> group met in a downstairs room, and close by was the W.C.

> used by Her Majesty

> the Queen. I was informed that Her Majesty travels with her

> own toilet seat that

> is installed for her when she visits the small mahogany

> lined cubicle we were

> now free to use, as I remember. At tea time, we were

> treated to the delicious

> Bath buns that

> melt in your mouth.

>  I discovered the meaning of

> “to toast†at

> that time. Apparently Beau Brummell celebrated a yearly

> event when the Baths

> were reserved for the exclusive use of a number of naked

> “ladies†who swam in

> the nude to the delight of a select group of gentlemen.

> Beau thought their heads

> bobbing in the water reminded him of the toast cubes

> decorating a syllabub bowl

> filled with that custardy alcoholic beverage served at

> Christmas. So he raised

> his glass to the “Toast of the Town!†See what

> etymology can

> reveal!

>  

> Another association with Freud occurred during

> WWII when we were escaping in a caravan of two buses, as a

> group of Americans,

> from Switzerland to

> Portugal . The long hot trip through

> France was hindered by hundreds of

> refugees on foot or in cars loaded with mattresses escaping

> the Germans that

> summer of 1940. We were delayed at the customs at the

> Spanish border because

> when we were all strip-searched, a fat lady had placed a

> German Swiss newspaper

> between her bottom and the hot leather seat in the bus..

> The German typescript

> had offset on her behind! The officials thought it might be

> code, so we had to

> spend the night. Fortunately, a kind peasant couple invited

> us to sleep in their

> home. The three of us slept on their double bed surrounded

> by hanging garlands

> of onions.

>   Finally, we

> were able to board a train,

> but when we arrived in Madrid , we were in every sense

> looking like

> tramps. My father was tie-less and his face covered by

> black stubble, as we

> entered the Ritz Hotel! Fortunately, our American

> Ambassador Weddell recognized

> my father and vouched for us.  He

> was the one who had just engineered the escape of Sigmund

> Freud from Vienna to England . I remember the first thing

> my mother and I did was taking turns in a bathtub of cold

> water. The temperature

> was 110 degrees. We also stopped in bullet-damaged

> Barcelona , still

> recovering from civil war. We attended a bull fight. When

> we reached the border

> to Portugal , we encountered a Jewish

> refugee family: grandfather, father, son, all rabbis, two

> wives, and a small

> pale four-year old little boy. We gave them the last bits

> of chocolate and

> powdered coffee we had. The last we saw of them was at the

> dock in Lisbon , headed for North

> Africa .

> We sailed home on the S.S. Excambion

> . We had a cabin, but the

> lounge had people sleeping side by side like sardines,

> among them the publisher

> of TIME, Salvador Dali and wife, who were very low-key and

> became friends, as

> did the governess and baby girl who ended up at the Ritz

> and inspired the

> character in the book about her: Eloise. I met them

> by chance later in

> Central Park . They were still there!

>  

> Lovingly,

> ao

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