Ancestors: Puritan minister Stephen Bachiler, from birth to Bedlam, with separation of church and state (and Hester Prynne) in between

Puritan lawyer and politician John Winthrop.

One of the fun things about tracing one’s family tree is occasionally coming across well-known people who shaped our cultural history in some way. Of course, you have to be careful; genealogy sites are full of crowdsourced information, much of it duplicated across family trees without fact-checking. But if you follow the actual documentation, occasionally you find you’re related to someone people write Wikipedia articles or even books about. 

I discovered recently that D. is distantly related to Stephen Bachiler, who was D’s 10th great-grandfather. What first caught my attention was discovering that one of D’s ancestors was buried on Halloween, 1656, in the infamous Bedlam Burial Ground in London. I have deep interests in London, cemeteries and historical treatments for mental illness, so discovering something like this makes my brain all kinds of curious. But when I looked Bachilor up online, I learned a lot more. 

Bachiler was born June 23, 1561, attended Oxford University and was one of its early graduates. In 1587 he became the vicar of Wherwell, Hampshire, England, but was kicked out in 1605 because he was too Puritanical for the changing tastes of the British monarchy. He married four times. The first was Ann Bates, in 1589; they had six children together, including Theodate Bachiler (D’s ninth great-grandmother), who married Christopher Hussey and became one of the early settlers of New Hampshire. Christian Weare became Bachiler’s second wife in 1623; she died three years later, and then he married Helena Mason in 1627. I’ll get to his fourth wife in a moment. 

In 1630, Bachiler was a member of the Company of Husbandmen, in London. They formed the Plough Company and secured a 1,600-square-mile land grant in Maine. They named it Lygonia, after Lygonia for Cecily Lygon, mother of New England Council president Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and Bachiler was going to be its leader and minister. He and Helena sailed to North America in 1632 and landed in Massachusetts, but by then the plans to establish Lygonia had already been abandoned. Puritan lawyer and leader John Winthrop later said that once the Plough Company families arrived and got a look at the land for themselves, they didn’t like it and settled elsewhere.

Bachiler bounced around New England for several years, establishing a church in Lynn (then Saugus), Massachusetts, where he managed to piss off the Puritan theocracy in Boston, apparently because of "his contempt of authority” and some sort of church “scandal.” Back in England, Bachiler and his son Stephen were sued by a local clergyman after they allegedly wrote “scandalous verse” about him and had been singing these songs around the village. But the scandal in Massachusetts was over something that eventually became a core American value: the separation of church and state. From his early days in England, Bachiler called for a “holy house without ceremonies,” a church free from the state’s control. In October of 1632, Winthrop was the governor of the state (the literal opposite of a separation between church and state) and had Bachiler arraigned for his stance on the church and state issue, forbidding him from “exercising his gifts as a pastor … until some scandles be removed.”

Hester Prynne and Pearl before the stocks, from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel “The Scarlet Letter.”

Bachiler later moved to Newbury, New Hampshire, with Theodate and Christopher, where they established a plantation at Winnacunnet. Bachiler named the town Hampton when the town was incorporated in 1639, and is credited as its founder. In 1644, Bachiler was invited to become minister of a new church in Exeter, Massachusetts, but that fell through when the state’s General Court postponed the establishment of a new church there. He returned to New Hampshire, working as a missionary in Strawbery Banke (now Portsmouth) and, in 1648, he married Mary Beedle. Three years later, she was indicted and sentenced for adultery with a neighbor, potentially inspiring the character of Hester Prynne in “The Scarlet Letter.”

Even so, the courts would not grant Bachiler a divorce. He returned to England in 1653, where he died on Oct. 28, 1656. He was buried three days later in what was then called the New Churchyard, a municipal cemetery in London next door to Bethlem Hospital, known for housing and (debatably) caring for the mentally ill. An estimated 20,000 people were buried in this plot of land in the 16th and 17th centuries, but city development eventually overtook the area. Headstones were removed and a few graves were relocated, but many more remain. Today this cemetery is located beneath the Liverpool Street Crossrail station, about a half-mile north of the Tower of London. 

If you enjoyed this and would like even more detail on the life of Stephen Bachiler, check out this 1961 article by Philip Mason Marston, Professor of History and Chairman of the Department at the University of New Hampshire.

Natural megaliths on the Sonoma Coast

A small rocky hill, with one of the sea stacks in the distance.

Millions of years ago, these sea stacks were underwater. Tens of thousands of years ago, mammoths and giant bison came to these tall stones to rub against them for grooming purposes. Today, groups of rock climbers gather here to test their abilities. 

They are most commonly known as the Sunset Rocks, or to some researchers as the Mammoth Rocks, because certain sections of them were rubbed to a polish by ancient megafauna. The person who introduced me to this place more than 20 years ago had another name for them, which is still how I think about them privately.

The early peoples of California didn’t build megaliths like the ones we see in the UK and Ireland, but these sea stacks have a similar feeling. As you approach the cluster of towering stones, you’re struck by a similar sense of awe, the feeling of entering a space that is sacred, other. When you find the path and follow it into the clearing between the stones, it feels like you have crossed into another world. The air is often warmer, more still, and the sounds of wind and pounding sea fade away. 

It would be difficult to overstate how special this place is. 

When I came here regularly 20+ years ago, it was often on weekday evenings around dusk, when we could have the place to ourselves. These days, I live too far away for a casual visit on a weeknight. I keep winding up here on Saturday afternoons, when the stones are covered with climbing enthusiasts. 

Fog covering the plain.

During my most recent visit, in mid-November, 2021, I was excited when I arrived, because the whole plain was blanketed with a thick layer of fog. Mists mean the possibility of straying into another world, like the stories about Avalon. But when I reached the stones, I discovered there was some kind of party or event in the clearing. Someone had set up a table with fliers, and I could hear the beep of a credit-card reader, though I didn’t get close enough to find out what they were selling. Laughter and chatter rose up from the stones, which were studded with climbers. 

I spent some time visiting the stones scattered around the main three, and on a little rocky hill nearby, enjoying the fog swirling across the landscape. I tried to imagine that perhaps I had wandered into another world, and the chatter from the Sunset Rocks was a gathering of nature spirits, but I wasn’t really convinced. I admit, I was disappointed; I wanted to go into the clearing and meditate with the stones, but that’s difficult to do when there are lively people all around you. I’ve tried.

Reading up later on the climbers who come to Sunset Rocks, I learned that, in general, they climb in a respectful way, using the stones’ own lumps and bumps for hand- and footholds, or placing anchors only in existing chinks in the rocks. Visiting this spot regularly seems to have fostered stewardship among climbers, and I appreciate that other people love and revere the stones, even though they’re in ways that are different from mine. Part of me objects; it would be disrespectful to go bouldering at Stonehenge or Avebury, but that’s not what this place is.

Somehow, I need to find ways to visit this place that aren’t peak climbing times, such as lovely (or even misty) Saturday afternoons. And I hope you get the chance to visit them too. Until then, you can read more about them, and other special Sonoma County sites, in my book “Sacred Sonoma.”

The house (and tunnels) that Thomas Midgley built

My dad and uncles grew up in an unusual house in Worthington, Ohio, located at 382 West Wilson Bridge Road. It was more than large enough for my grandparents and their five boys, and provided ample room to run around and explore. Just before the property was torn down to make way for a freeway, Columbus Dispatch reporter Bill Arter and photographer Jack Hutton visited the property to capture images of the unusual series of caverns and tunnels under the property, built by inventor Thomas Midgley. Read the full article below.

Worthington house tunnels, mid-level exit.

MAN-MADE CAVERN 
By Bill Arter 
Photos by Jack Hutton
Columbus Dispatch Magazine
Sunday, October 31, 1965

THERE'S this big stone wall with a great big solid-oak door with great, huge iron hinges and iron all over it, right down at the bottom of the bluff in the woods." Thus, all in a rush and with little by way of introduction, began my young son. At least he was young then; it's been more than 20 years ago. Having caught my interest, he proceeded from allegedly observed fact to hearsay: "The kids say it leads into a cave that runs all around and has big stone rooms and everything and finally runs right up into that rich guy's basement.". "What rich guy?" I asked, more or less idly, being convinced that young Bill had been having his leg pulled. "The guy that invented Ethyl gas," he replied. “You know, the big white house with the swimming pool that sets way back from Wilson Bridge Road."I began to feel a flicker of interesting hope that this wonderful tale might be true. 

Certainly our neighbor, Tom Midgley, could afford a private cavern, if he wanted it. And, as it turned out, he had wanted it and he did have it every bit as grand as the description. Thomas Midgley came by his inventiveness naturally. His father, born in London, England, was an inventor and natural mechanic who contributed a great deal to the development and manufacturing of bicycles. He came to America at an early age and was living in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania when Thomas was born May 19, 1889. The family soon moved to Columbus where his father became superintendent of the old Columbus Bicycle Company. Young Tom grew up here; he attended Hubbard and Fifth Avenue schools and graduated from old North High School.

He went on to graduate from Cornell in 1911 with a degree in mechanical engineering. Surprisingly, his most significant inventions were in another field altogether--in chemistry. 

Tom's first job was with the National Cash Register Company in Dayton. Then he and his father took a flyer--establishing the short-lived Midgley Tire & Rubber Company in Lancaster. The enterprise was not a success but it left Tom with a life-long interest in rubber--and in chemistry. Years later (and well before the critical, wartime need) he did tremendously significant work toward developing synthetic rubber. He was working at the time for the General Motors Chemical Company. 

In 1916 he joined Charles Kettering at General Motors Research. It was to be a lifelong association and “Boss Ket" shares the glory for some of Tom's greatest developments. Tom's two most celebrated (and personally profitable) inventions were tetraethyl lead additive to make the familiar. Ethyl gasoline and freon, the first safe refrigerant. In his short career he was granted more than 100 patents, including one for extracting bromine from sea water--to break a bottleneck in the production of Ethyl gasoline. He was showered with professional honors. He became president of the American Chemical Society, received honorary doctorates from two universities and won five important medals for scientific achievement. 

The house Thomas Midgley built, and my grandparents purchased in 1945.

In 1929 he came back to Columbus. Up along Wilson Bridge Road, between High Street and the Olentangy River Road he built a stately Colonial home. In spite of its immense size be installed a complete air-conditioning system, perhaps not the first such in all the land. He intended it for a retirement home for his father but made it his own home, too.  He was there very little, dividing most of his time between Dayton, Detroit, Washington and New York. 

The house was hardly completed when the great depression began. Midgley hired as many men as he could possibly use, building roads, landscaping and otherwise furbishing his estate. But, finally, everything was complete. The distress of the jobless still worried him. Then he had his great idea.  

He had shared with most boys a feeling of fascination for caves. As he cast about for ways to make work, the old lure beckoned. The very immersity of what he envisioned was its chief advantage. It would take a lot of men a long time to dig and line with stone a system of caverns and rooms ranging inside the big bluff behind his house.  And it would take a lot of money, which Midgley had. He lost no time getting on with the project. 

Ted Severance, who now lives on nearby Worthington-Galena Road, was Midgley's estate manager. He became superintendent of what a lot of people thereabout considered the craziest project of all time. Some of them criticized Midgley for pouring good money into a "gigantic anthill." But most were gratefully aware that it was Tom's way of sharing his wealth--that the cavern was, in truth, a byproduct.

Ted recalls that the job took more than a year to complete, and that as many as 50 men at a time burrowed and dug to create two separate caverns (that were finally joined) and special rooms. The vaulted ceilings, the walls and floors were all built of limestone, blue and white, from nearby quarries. Ted and his father laid it all with meticulous care. The wrought-iron hardware – hinges, straps, bolts and candle sconces--were made by Mr. Kirker, a skilled Worthington blacksmith. At last the great undertaking was completed and things were back to normal. 

Tom Midgley, it is said, got his money's worth out of the astonishment of his guests. It was his custom to invite them to the baronial-size recreation room and then swing open a heavy door at one end. Inside was a stone-lined room with a candle guttering in a grinning skull. With guests trailing in open mouthed wonder, he'd lead the way through another great door and, via vaulted passageways and endless steps, start the tour by candlelight. Visitors from all parts of the world came away wondering if they had really seen it or only dreamed of those tombless catacombs beneath peaceful Ohio soil. 

Midgley continued his ceaseless professional activities until suddenly, in 1940, he contracted polio. Soon his legs were practically useless. Even so he continued to be the scientist. In 1942 he addressed the National Inventors' Council on behalf of the war effort from his home, via closed-circuit radio. For himself he invented a system of harness and slings so that he could move from bed to wheelchair with the strength of his arms. It was his final and fatal invention. 

Thursday morning, November 2, 1944, his wife found him strangled by his own device. Thomas Midgley died at 55. 

In 1945, the beautiful Midgley estate was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Gail Winegarner. They had fallen in love with its spacious grounds and house but, even more importantly, they saw in it the perfect place to raise their five active sons. It has proved to be everything they desired. 

More than a year ago I was passing the estate and, on sudden impulse, drove back its long, curving driveway to the house. I was received most kindly by Mr. Winegarner. I told him how much I always admired the place and said I'd like to make a painting of it. To my dismay he answered that I'd have to get on with it; that it would all be destroyed when the north Outerbelt went through. The distressing news brought to my mind the never personally confirmed story of the caves. Somewhat diffidently I asked if the famous “catacombs” really did exist. He assured me that they did and asked me if I'd  like to inspect them. I jumped at the chance. 

The pictures tell of what I saw. But they can't possibly convey the weird and wonderful sensation it was to step from the brilliantly lighted home into a gloomy cave, lighted by a glinting electric torch ahead, with inky blackness closing in behind. We traversed all of its many levels and explored all the passageways and rooms before returning to the house. Once there I asked eagerly if I might do a story about the caves for The Sunday Magazine. Mr. Winegarner smiled a rueful smile and said, “Not until the bulldozers are at our door." Then he explained why: Years ago the Winegarners became aware that the huge door to the cave at the foot of the bluff had been forced. They learned it by investigating noises from the caverns. They learned that boys (strong, well equipped boys) had been unable to resist the challenge of thię mysterious door. It developed that they had grown bolder and bolder, roistering in the caves and even trying to force their way into the house. A final blow came during a court hearing. It concerned a youthful gang that was accused of stealing. There was testimony that the gang had made the cave their headquarters and had hidden their loot in it. 

Stronger bars on the bottom door didn't stop the intrusions. It was literally destroyed. The best estimate Mr. Winegarner could get for building a duplicate was $400. And then the bidder backed out. 

Determined to stop the prowling, the Winegarners closed the lower entrance with a masonry wall. To their utter amazement and chagrin, the new wall was attacked with crowbars and sledgehaṁmers before the mortar was dry and soon pulled down. A second and far more formidable wall, at last, foiled the would-be trespassers. Not long afterward the family investigated noises down in the ravine and discovered evidence that an especially determined gang had been attempting to blast through the new wall. The presence of the alluring novelty became a real tribulation. 

When Jack Hutton and I returned to the cave to take these pictures, Mrs. Winegarner added a new chapter to the vandalism saga. Quite recently she smelled smoke in the house and traced it to the rapidly filling recreation room. She then discovered that a second level door to the cave, halfway up the bluff had been forced (the door literally torn from its hinges) and that kids had built a roaring fire in one of the passageways. She insisted that a deputation of them come up to the house and see what was happening to the smoke. 

With the second door gone, uninvited visitors have prowled the caves at all hours. Jack and I noted, just inside the forced entrance, a cache of matches and candles tucked between the stones. The Winegarners, before final destruction of the house, almost gave up trying to keep out trespassers; their concern being the danger of someone's being hurt. For that reason, primarily, they wanted no further publicity for the catacombs before roadwork began. 

I could, of course, understand their feeling. Thus I kept my peace until now. The bulldozers will have started laying bare Tom Midgley's caverns by the time this appears in print and one of the strangest examples of privately financed welfare projects will be gone for good. 

Seasonal thoughts, Persephone thoughts

Art by Gwen Davies. Click the image to visit her Etsy shop.

With the autumn equinox just a few days away (Sept. 22), and Halloween/Samhain not far off, I find myself in a familiar thought pattern. I often feel very separated from the cycles of the year that modern pagans follow, based on much older Irish practices. In part that’s because I do not live an agrarian life dictated closely by cycles of farming and livestock, and in part it’s because of the way the seasons work here in coastal Northern California.

There are three harvest festivals in the pagan calendar. They include Lughnasadh in early August, named after the Irish warrior-god Lugh (in the Irish language, August is called Lunasa); the autumn equinox; and Samhain, the official start to the “dark half of the year” in neopagan culture (even though that literally begins the day after the equinox, when the nights begin to be longer than the days). In Irish, September is called Meán Fómhair (or middle of harvest), October is Deireadh Fómhair (end of harvest), and November is Samhain.

To some extent, it’s true that these months are peak harvest season in California, too; the tomatoes, corn, stone fruits and figs are at their best in August and September. At the same time, summer is very much the dead season here. It’s hot and dry, the hillsides full of dead grasses and the air parched and stultifying. Wildfires come and renew the ground (and, unfortunately, destroy many homes and communities and threaten lives). 

Here in San Francisco, September and October are our “summer” months, when the fog dissipates and we have gently sunny, warm days. There’s a reason our two biggest music festivals (Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and Outside Lands) are in the August-October months, and why the Blue Angels usually come here the first weekend of October.

But when the rains begin, northern California comes alive again. Our rolling hills are so green, they resemble landscapes in Ireland and rural England. It doesn’t snow close to the coast in California, and many of our trees are evergreen. The leaves don’t change color, and many never fall at all. And so winter, between late December and mid-March, is not a dead season for us. Yes, it’s colder and the days are more dark than light, but the Earth feels vibrantly alive as creeks and rivers fill with rainwater and new grasses grow. Oxalis and miner’s lettuce flourish, as do many “winter” crops, including kale and Brussels sprouts.

And so, I’ve never been able to figure out a “wheel of the year” type calendar that would work for coastal Northern California. Probably someone has. If so, I’d love to hear about it. 

* * *

Along with all this, as October draws near I find myself thinking about one of my favorite goddesses, Persephone. As the story goes, she was kidnapped by Hades, the king of the underworld/land of the dead, after he courted her for many months. They married and she became queen of the underworld (note that this is not the same thing as Hell; it’s the place where souls go after they die). 

Her mother, Demeter, goddess of the crops, searched high and low, and eventually found Persephone in the underworld. She tried to get Persephone to come home, but Persephone had eaten the food of the dead, six pomegranate seeds, and thus couldn’t leave -- at least not permanently. Demeter and Hades agreed that Persephone would spend six months on the surface, and during those months, Demeter would help the crops grow (spring and summer). But when Persephone was with Hades, the fields would go fallow (autumn and winter).

Aside from my fondness for pomegranates and the underworld, I often wonder why I like Persephone so much. She’s very young, and has little agency of her own. She’s a pawn in the battle between Hades and Demeter. Her husband is a stern guy, not a lot of fun. She’s not powerful and independent like the goddesses Erishkigal or Hecate. I suppose the younger girl in me identifies with her in many ways, and I suspect she grew into her power as queen of the underworld (as the Orpheus and Eurydice story reveals). Whatever the reason, she’s often on my mind this time of year. 

Home through the woods

The last bell of the day rings and I meet my first-grade sweetheart, Charlie, on the playground at the back of the school. Together we walk to the treeline at the edge of campus and duck under the layers of oak, white willow and blackberry brambles. 

He’s the one who showed me this secret path; it’s the quickest way to get from school to his house, which is just down the hill from mine. We pick our way along the creek, the canopy of leaves and thorns close over our heads. Sometimes we hold hands, other times we walk a few paces apart, stepping over wet stones and slippery mud. In warm weather, flies and mosquitoes buzz past us, while water-striders flick across the surface of the creek. The air is thick with moisture and the scent of crushed leaves, or decaying vegetation and ripe blackberries on hot days. 

It’s slow going, walking along the narrow banks of the creek when it’s full from a recent rain, dodging blackberry thorns and sharp twigs that jut into our path. Part of me dreads emerging on the other side, re-entering the world of sunlight, grownups and speeding cars. Sometimes we linger, watching some rare insect or collecting pebbles. But it’s not a long path, and it always ends too soon. Charlie steps out first, reaching a hand back to help me jump across the ditch that separates the woods from the road. We say our goodbyes and I turn to walk uphill toward home, while he heads in the other direction. 

My romance with Charlie didn’t last (what first-grade romance does?), and I switched to walking home along the local roads with friends, sometimes stopping for a soft-serve ice cream cone on the way. But once in a while, I returned to the creek path. It was poorly maintained, and many times it was impassable, blocked by blackberry vines or fallen tree limbs. When it wouldn’t let me in, my heart broke a little.

Sometimes I’d go months without visiting, and then would walk down the hill one weekend afternoon to enter the woods from the other side, which was sometimes more accessible. I’d sit by the creek for hours, watching water-striders and tiny fish dart around, sending ripples across the clear surface of the water. In spring, frogs would lay eggs in the swollen creek and I would collect tadpoles in a jar, bring them home, and feed them until their tails shrunk and their legs sprouted before returning them to the their birthplace. 

As I grew bigger, I stopped going. The arboreal tunnel was too low for most teenagers and adults to walk comfortably; they’d have to crouch, or crawl. In a way, it was a place just for kids, a place to be ourselves, where the grownup world couldn’t reach us. 

On Google maps, it looks like the woods are still there but the pathway is gone; the trees have fallen in and closed the way through. (See the photo at the top.) I trust that the water still flows there, at least in the wetter months. That place belongs to the frogs, water-striders and blackberries, now.  

Why concert lighting is an accessibility issue

About four years ago, in July, 2017, I went with a friend to see Ghost at the Warfield in San Francisco. I was really looking forward to the show, and had picked out a seat in the balcony where I could enjoy myself without getting jostled by moshers or wearing myself out by being on my feet for several hours. 

As we got inside, I noticed small signs around the venue, warning people that the performance would feature strobe lights, and anyone with seizures triggered by flashing lights should be aware. I don’t have seizures, but I do have migraines, and they’re often triggered by bright, direct light, including strobe lights. Even though I did my best to shield my eyes from the strobes, about halfway through the show, I felt a migraine coming on. Pain burned through my head, neck and shoulders, and I started to feel nauseated. I took my meds (ibuprofen and maxalt) and retreated to the women’s lounge, where I could still hear the band but couldn’t see the stage lights anymore. 

I’d spent $40 or $50 to see a band, and got half a show and a migraine instead. If I’d known about the strobes ahead of time, I might have skipped the gig and saved my money. Now imagine I’d had a seizure instead.

An acquaintance of mine works in lighting, mostly for tech conferences but occasionally for theater and concert performances. After the Ghost show, I had a number of questions that he answered for me. I came away more informed, and more frustrated, than I’d been before. Here’s why: 

• Venues don’t know ahead of time which bands are going to use lighting that might cause problems for audiences with seizures and/or migraines. 

• Because they don’t know ahead of time, they can’t warn people at the time of ticket sales. 

• That means a certain number of concertgoers either have to bail after they get to the venue, hide out somewhere where they can’t see the lighting, or tough it out and hope their condition won’t be triggered. I don’t know if you can get a refund for these kinds of situations (and that’s assuming people didn’t travel a long way to see the show, rent a hotel room, etc.).

• There are no regulations barring bands from using lighting that can induce seizures and/or migraines. 

This is an accessibility issue. In any given audience at the Warfield (capacity: 2,300), there’s likely to be an average of two people with light-sensitive epilepsy, and another 200 or so will have migraines caused by photosensitivity. Bands either need to warn their venues (and audiences) ahead of time that their light shows could trigger seizures or migraines, or stop using lighting that provokes these conditions. 

Have you ever had a seizure or migraine triggered by the lighting at a show? What did you do about it?

Talking with my mom's ghost about Jean Smart

Warning: Contains spoilers for Mare of Easttown and Hacks.

In the mid to late 1980s, my mom and I had an evening routine. After dinner, we’d gather in the family room -- she in her pastel space-dyed armchair, me on the matching sofa -- to watch the evening’s primetime shows. Who’s The Boss?, Growing Pains, Moonlighting, Perfect Strangers, Kate & Allie, Head of the Class, Max Headroom, Designing Women.

We didn’t talk as we watched them, though we did laugh together pretty often. My mom was usually sewing a piece of her latest quilt project, or had one of the cats draped across her lap, while I curled up on the couch. I loved the easy escape these shows provided, someone to tell me stories in the hours between dinner and bedtime. When the shows featured teens, I felt a kinship with many of the girls and crushed on the boys, including Kirk Cameron, George Clooney (who was occasionally on Facts of Life), Michael J. Fox and Brad Pitt (who guest starred in an episode of Growing Pains). 

Even when there weren’t any kids, I often found something to like. The banter and sexual tension on Moonlighting. The futuristic mysteries of Max Headroom. I liked Designing Women because it included Annie Potts, who I’d loved in Ghostbusters and Pretty in Pink. But I can see why my mom liked it, too: it depicts an all-woman interior design firm in Atlanta, not far from where my mom grew up in Smyrna. Its leader was the tough, funny, resolute Julia Sugarbaker, played by Dixie Carter. I don’t know which of the women was my mom’s favorite, but I wonder if she had a soft spot for Jean Smart’s character, Charlene Frazier, whose highlighted blonde hair matched my mom’s. 

My mom died when I was 22, before I had the chance to have an adult relationship with her. I still think about her all the time, and wonder what we would talk about if she were still around. Would she still have the same sharp, punny sense of humor? Would she have adapted to using a smartphone, so we could text each other? Would we still enjoy some of the same television shows?

I recently watched Mare of Easttown and Hacks, both featuring Jean Smart, and found myself wanting to talk to my mom about them.

I wonder what she would have thought of Helen, the angry, sarcastic matriarch Smart plays on Mare. Like her, would my mom be addicted to mobile games and snarking? Would my mom have laughed at Helen’s trick of hiding ice cream in a frozen veggie bag as much as I did? And what about Deborah Vance in Hacks? Would my mom giggle at all those cringey, dated Vegas jokes, or admire Vance’s unshakeable poise and confidence? 

In some ways, watching these shows allowed me to feel into the relationships between younger women and the doyennes Smart plays. In Mare it’s a literal mother and daughter, and Kate Winslet’s titular character is roughly my age, in her mid to late 40s. They live together, jointly caring for Mare’s daughter and grandson, quietly looking after each other through a thick layer of emotional reserve. They are central to a close-knit community where Helen had an affair with a neighbor and Mare’s investigating crimes that involve or implicate her friends. We lived in a similar small town, where my mom worked as an assistant at my elementary school and we couldn’t go into any shop for months after her death without hearing how much the staff missed her. 

With Hacks it’s less clear-cut. Ava, the young woman who begins working as a writer for Vance, is at least 20 years younger than I am, and much more brassy and loudmouthed than I ever was. Ava and Deborah slowly become friends, in part, because they are able to stand up to each other’s cutting remarks. I never could have done that, but then again my mom was kind-hearted, nothing like Smart’s hard-shelled Deborah. But as Ava learns more about Deborah’s life and career, I recognize my efforts to discover more about the life my mom rarely talked about. Ava eventually helps Deborah remember and embrace her whole self in a way I wish my mom and I could have done for each other. 

There are scenes in both series where these pairs open up to each other. In the final episode of Mare, after a family dinner at a local pizza parlor, Helen tells Mare, “Truth is, I was angry a lot. I was angry that your father wasn’t the person I thought I’d married, and I was angry that I couldn’t fix him, and I took a lot of that out on you. I’m sorry, Mare.” “I forgive you, Mom,” Mare replies. “Good, because I forgave myself a long time ago,” Helen says, before starting to cry. 

In Hacks, after Deborah and Ava have a fight so intense you’re sure it’s the end of their friendship and working relationship, Deborah comes to Ava’s dad’s funeral. In Ava’s childhood bedroom, they talk about grief and they make each other laugh even as they’re making each other cry. They move through the kind of reconciliation that I wish I could experience with my mom. We never got to talk, openly, on equal footing. I was always a kid.

It’s possible that if she were still alive we wouldn’t be watching the same shows, or having the kinds of conversations I imagine. But that’s okay. Seeing these series and getting to picture what we’d say to each other about them makes me feel like she’s still with me. 

Echoes in white noise

When I was in my late teens, I had a boyfriend whose family had worked at the Northern California Renaissance Faire every summer for years. I joined them for a couple of years, spending time at their feather fan shop or braiding ribbons at their friend Julia’s velvet-bag shop, wandering the dusty trails, sipping spicy iced chai or savoring waffles and ice cream.

The event wasn’t exceptionally loud, but it provided a steady hum of voices — people talking and singing — as well as medieval bands and musicians playing their instruments as they ambled up and down the paths. Each weekend, I would come home and soak in a long bath to wash off the dust, sweat, fire retardant and anything else my body had accumulated after two days in the dry California oak woodland. And, as the warm water rumbled and filled the tub, I thought I could hear the murmur of voices and the sound of pipes and flutes amid the white noise.

I was amused to hear these ghosts of the weekend, and often leaned in to hear conversations and melodies that weren’t quite there.

This past weekend, I rented a house in the Santa Cruz Mountains — a place that often feels haunted to me, after experiences I had there 20 years ago. After more than a year being at home with my partner and kiddo, I needed some extended time alone. I love them dearly, but I was wiped out from the lack of solitude. (In a recent interview with the Pleasure Mechanics, author Emily Nagoski described her similar situation as like being tied to a chair and force-fed chocolate.)

The house was surrounded on all sides by redwood trees — which was one of its major selling points for me. The whole weekend, ravens flitted from tree to tree throughout the canyon, cawing and cackling and croaking at each other. The only time it got a little too loud was when one of them hopped around on the flat roof over my head, cawing its head off.

When I came home yesterday afternoon, I rested in bed with a portable fan blowing cool air across my skin, and I could hear the echoes of the ravens’ calls. They were faint but unmistakable above the hum of the fan, an artifact of my brain subconsciously dancing along a weekend of raven-song. I hadn’t thought about that phenomena in a long time, and it made me smile.

It took me almost three weeks to recover from the Covid-19 vaccine, I think?

Pins created by my brother, Tyler Winegarner. Buy them at his Etsy shop.

As of April 21, I’m fully vaccinated against Covid-19, meaning I’ve had two doses of the (Pfizer) vaccine and my second dose was on April 7. I had some health issues after each dose that I suspect were long-lasting side effects, and I wanted to share them here because I’ve seen so little written about this. Note that I am not a medical professional; I am just sharing my own experiences. 

I had my first shot on the morning of Wednesday, March 17. I started feeling tired that afternoon and took a nap. I slept pretty well that night, and napped again the following day. On Friday I felt pretty good, and I thought that was the end of it. But over the weekend I had a low appetite, some nausea, and some other GI irritation. Going into the next week (of March 22), I started having cold symptoms: fatigue, sneezing, congestion, sore throat and a mild fever (99.1-ish). Those lasted for a few days and I was feeling pretty okay by the end of the week. 

I got my second shot on April 7. I felt fine that evening and a little tired the next day, but that was all. But then, on Friday April 9, I developed chills and another mild fever (low 99s), which lasted for about 36 hours. On Sunday I felt good, but on Monday (April 12), I developed GI symptoms again that lasted about 48 hours. Another round of cold symptoms followed: lots of fatigue, runny nose, sneezing, sore throat, and some serious brain fog. These continued through the weekend of April 17-18. I’ve felt a bit better each day since then, but some mild fatigue has lingered, and I’ve slept hard every night, which is unusual for me. 

I wouldn’t have thought much of it, except that the pattern of post-vaccine side effects were so similar both times. I wondered if maybe I had a virus, but nobody else in my household had any signs of illness. My instinct tells me that these waves of symptoms were the way my body mounted its immune response to the vaccines. 

I asked on Facebook whether anyone had had prolonged symptoms after their shots, and I got some responses in the affirmative. In particular, some of my friends with fibromyalgia (which I also have) said they had longer reaction times, as though the vaccine had perhaps triggered a fibromyalgia flare. Some of what I experienced felt that way, too, especially the fatigue, malaise and brain fog. Anecdotes are not data, but it seems like an experience worth noting. 

It’s now three-plus weeks since my second shot, and I’m pretty much feeling back to normal. I’m grateful to have this protection from Covid-19, and don’t regret that I got vaccinated. But my experience makes me wonder how many other people had longer recovery times from the vaccine, especially the second one. Dr. Jen Gunter recently noted that our lymph nodes can remain swollen for four to six weeks after the second dose, so clearly our immune systems are still working hard for weeks after these vaccines. 

What about you and your family? Did anyone you know have a longer reaction time to the vaccines?

Do You Feel What I Feel?

Many years ago, a boyfriend of mine discovered that he could tickle me by tickling (or even pretending to tickle) his own body. When he did this, I felt the creep-crawl of tickly fingers on my own skin, and it made me shudder and squirm. Neither of us understood why.

I’ve had many other instances in my life when I could feel the touch on someone else’s skin, or the shock of pain at seeing a wound on another person’s body. But I’ve only learned in the past few years that this is a real thing that happens to some people, and it has a name: mirror touch synesthesia.

From Wikipedia:

Mirror-touch synesthesia is a rare condition which causes individuals to experience a similar sensation in the same part or opposite part of the body (such as touch) that another person feels. For example, if someone with this condition were to observe someone touching their cheek, they would feel the same sensation on their own cheek. Synesthesia, in general, is described as a condition in which a stimulus causes an individual to experience an additional sensation.[1]

There’s some research suggesting that mirror touch synesthesia is connected to sensory processing disorder and/or being on the autism spectrum. Jenara Nerenberg, author of the book Divergent Mind, argues that synesthesia in general is one form of neurodivergence, along with ADHD, sensory processing disorder, being autistic and being highly sensitive. I suspect there are a lot of overlaps among these various differences.

Mirror touch synesthesia reminds me a bit of Earthseed protagonist Lauren Olamina’s hyperempathy syndrome. When something pleasant or harmful happens to someone around here, such as a hug or a stabbing, she can feel it as though it were happening in her own body. This becomes difficult when she has to defend herself against attackers. Several critics have called Olamina’s condition "fictional” or even “delusional.” It’s not clear whether author Octavia E. Butler knew about or had experienced mirror touch synesthesia when she was writing the Earthseed books. Did she borrow the idea from real-life experiences? I wonder.

Olamina considers whether her hyperempathy is a positive or negative thing. "But if everyone could feel everyone else's pain, who would torture? Who would cause anyone unnecessary pain? I've never thought of my problem as something that might do some good before, but the way things are, I think it would help. I wish I could give it to people.”

Although I don’t enjoy unexpected touch, and mirror touch synesthesia can sometimes feel that way, it doesn’t feel like an illness or disability. Mirror touch synesthesia isn’t the only type I experience; I also occasionally have color-gustatory synesthesia, where certain colors (particularly intense colors) will also have a flavor. I’ve known a lot of synesthetes in my life and, for the most part, most of them were glad to have this additional conduit of sensation — as long as it didn’t become overwhelming. But many people go through their lives not realizing synesthesia exists, or that there are so many different kinds. Either they grow up believing everyone experiences this (and later find out they don’t), or they feel like they’re the only ones experiencing this strange sensory crossover (they aren’t).

I try to talk about this stuff year-round, but April is autism awareness month, which is one reason I’ve been blogging about sensory-related issues this month. You might also be interested in following my Instagram account for sensitive folks, @sensitiveenough.

Do you have synesthesia? What kind? Does it feel like a blessing, a hindrance, both, or something else?