The Bite in the Apple: A Memoir of My Life with Steve Jobs (30 page)

That evening, observing Kobun’s behaviors, I had the feeling of being angry with him on behalf of Steve, his host and most excellent student. But within hours I thought better of it. The chewy hidden center inside both Kobun’s and Steve’s power was never something I could stand up for, because both regularly exploited people. So when it came down to the two of them, Steve won by doing nothing and owning everything, as Kobun spun out of control with challenges that had all the impact of a spitwad blown from the lofty heights of the peanut gallery.

*   *   *

I was living in Paris in August 2002 when I received an e-mail from a friend telling me that Kobun had died a sudden and tragic death. In a bizarre accident, Kobun’s young daughter from his second family had fallen into a lagoon while he was giving a retreat on the property of one of his students in Switzerland. Someone rushed in to tell him she had fallen into the water and Kobun immediately ran out of the building to jump into the lagoon to save her. From what I understand, they were found four hours later downstream, the child wrapped in his robes, both dead. No one in any world would want such a thing to happen, but I do wonder if in the struggle to save his own beloved little girl’s life, Kobun came to recognize the value of a daughter?

EIGHTEEN

THE REALITY DISTORTION FIELD

Idyllwild, California, is tucked away in the San Jacinto Mountains, just above the Palm Springs desert. A quaint resort town with a small-town feel, “Mile-high Idyllwild” has a couple of private art schools and a summer music festival. The local newspaper is called the
Town Crier
and the residents once elected a golden retriever to the position of mayor. I was relieved to arrive there with baby Lisa in June of 1978, and not just because the air was high-altitude fresh and the town had a creative hubbub. I was there to be with family, and family was what I needed.

My sister Kathy picked me up from the Palm Springs airport with her husband, Mark, and their baby, six-month-old Sarah. My father and his wife drove my car and theirs with all my things, which included a small English-style crib for Lisa that they had found through the want ads. It felt good to arrive at Kathy and Mark’s home, a wonderful 1930s state-built home for the forestry department service people. (Kathy was a ranger and her husband was a forest firefighter, and a writer, too.) Kathy’s house had that particular kind of clean, well-cared-for look that comes after years of good maintenance. Their neighborhood was in the middle of town, a beautiful spacious area with large grassy lawns, outdoor clotheslines, and covered porches. It was like Mayberry.

Kathy and I are half sisters and nothing alike, but our natures are complementary and we’ve enjoyed a rich, collaborative friendship throughout the years. The five months that Lisa and I lived with Kathy and her family were full. We shared our great enjoyment of cooking—and eating, of course—and every evening, after the children were fed, we’d have engaging conversations over sit-down dinners with Mark.

But I had long days by myself when everyone was at work. I was depressed, in shock, really, from the events of the past year so I just sort of floated as I cared for my little baby. There had been so many terrible incidents with Steve; the sheer number of them seemed to indicate that I deserved to be treated badly. I knew in my heart that I didn’t, but at the time I lacked the knowledge that a man who treats a woman badly is simply out of integrity with all life. Now I believe that my whole life has been about the work of understanding not just this, but how love is bigger than cruelty. Back then I felt shattered and numb by Steve’s contempt and abandonment.

I tried to hold everything together, to understand my emotional life, and get organized to make things happen, but it was all too much and the ground was falling in under me. It was like I was living a life on several levels and struggling to come to terms with each one. I was tuned in to the immediacy of daily life with Lisa’s little sweetness and her back-to-back needs, trying to understand whether I should place her for adoption. Nothing was more important than working through this. Besides this I was coping with the dynamics of living with my sister, and dealing with past issues connected to our mother. Then there were the larger issues having to do with Steve, and what he was and was not doing. Pressing in on all of this was the fact that I had precious little money.

I took care of Lisa’s needs. That came first, of course. I loved her and loved playing with her. We would cuddle and I would hold her close to me. I enjoyed her sweetness, but there was no way I could tell how my own unhappiness affected her. My days were filled with dullness, dread, and delight—the three
D
s that constantly darkened me and lit me up. Kathy worked during the weekdays. When Mark wasn’t out fighting fires for the national parks (he could be away for weeks at a time), he’d either be writing at home or at the library, or working out at the gym. Sarah went to a babysitter during the week, and I’d putter about at home with Lisa, and also walk around town with her strapped to my front in a baby cozy.

In the evenings, Kathy and I made dinner together while the children sat side by side in little seats that we had placed on top of a big chest in the kitchen. These seats put the babies’ eyes just above the level of the countertop so they could take in what we were doing. Talking, laughing, and playing music while we made dinner we’d sometimes pick the children up and dance. Because they were different ages they balanced their bodies differently when we danced with them. Sarah used a swimming motion to readjust her self so that she was always perpendicular to the floor at every move. But Lisa was so tiny that I’d cradle her in my arms—holding her closely and then outstretching my arms to sweep her around the room. I held her head stable when I did this, and she would flow with the movement and look around in twinkling wonder. “Twinkling wonder” pretty much described Lisa at this time.

When Mark came home he’d join in the mix, sort of like a friendly, visiting dignitary. Mark said that he was going to be the next great American novelist and I, for one, believed it. I still have never met anyone as intelligent as that man, nor do I recall knowing anyone who read as much as he did. Mark read books by the foot, covering a vast array of subjects. He just ate them up, claiming that a true intellectual doesn’t have preconceived notions about what is important, but is interested in anything and everything on its own terms. I loved this information and like many of the things he said, it has served me well over the years because I really like the idea that everything is worthy when you know how to look at it.

Mark brought home some great science fiction books during the time I was there and they left their stamp on my imagination. I still wonder as to the plights of the characters in those futuristic scenarios. Also tucked into my memories of those days were his arriving home and playing the first Bruce Springsteen album I’d ever heard,
Darkness on the Edge of Town.
Was I surprised by that music.

Springsteen wrote songs that were evocative of an earlier America, yet heralded a new vision into the future at the same time. Songs like “Candy’s Room,” “Racing in the Street,” and “The Promised Land” contained within them a passion for an America coming of age and for American life. The ache and vibrancy in these songs is so alive that it turned me inside out with a kind of urgency I had never felt before. After the Vietnam War, which for many in the sixties and seventies was synonymous with the betrayal by American leadership of Americans
and
the world, I was struck by Springsteen’s love of country. Fresh, and beyond any false nationalistic sentimentality, his were the songs of the dream and promise of America, sung back into the blood of youth. Give that man a medal.

If weekdays in Idyllwild were about domestic life, weekends were about the great outdoors. Saturday and Sundays we’d all hike in the hills with our children strapped to us—Sarah on Mark or Kathy’s back and Lisa on my front. Kathy knew the best trails, being a ranger, and we’d walk together under the pines, smelling their resin in the light fresh air while trekking deeper into the woods. We followed the most beautiful paths next to rivers, and up onto rock outcroppings. There, under brilliant clear blue skies, we’d enjoy the views over the top of the deep dark evergreen forests to the distant horizons. Having small children is about being in small warm spaces, but this was its opposite and I’d hold Lisa’s little face cupped in my hand as I walked and she’d seem very content. I could tell that she liked it when I was happy because she would look up into my face and mirror my excitement.

*   *   *

Life could be bright and interesting when I lived at Kathy and Mark’s, but there were no real conversations about what I was going through. We were, each of us, under thirty, and my situation was over everyone’s head. How could they understand? My life was so out of balance that I must have seemed like a sinkhole to a lot of people and so we just stayed at the surface of it all.

I wish I’d had a therapist to help me mine the darkness, but that was beyond my resources. So I got up every morning and worked my way through the days without design, except to care, hoping something out of the ordinary would happen, something to move me into a happy flow so I could forget what I was so alone in grappling with. It was at this time that I bought a handbook of crystal identification at the local bookstore. I had so little money that it really was an extravagance, but I had to have it.

The book contained photographs and precise drawings of naturally occurring and idealized crystal formations, along with descriptions as to where the crystals could be found on and in the earth. I just loved this book, and would pore through the pictures to look at all the crystalline shapes that were so beautiful and perfect. As a child I had always had gorgeous rock collections and so I suppose that studying these pages was an extension of that original love of the mineral world. But it was different, too, because looking at the idealized geometric shapes offered me something strong and beautiful, something more than the day-to-day difficulty that I felt. The artist in me couldn’t get enough of looking at them. But as I realize now, it was at this time when I felt buried by Steve’s negative versions of who I was, that the shapes and the way the crystals caught the light reminded me of natural bright elegance and wholeness—the poetics of inspired survival. Indeed they were a precursor to the artwork I would begin to do right as Lisa left for college.

During the days in Idyllwild I loved to watch Lisa and the little searching movements of her nose and hands and feet. She was like the movement of water at its surface: perfect wiggly contentment. People watch fires and TV and even aquariums but a baby’s face? I had no idea that her endlessly nuanced expressions would be such a constant draw for me. Sometimes I would hold her upside down by her little legs because I had discovered how she delighted in seeing her environment from different angles. Her cheeks would fall around her eyes and she would have the most sublime smile as her head turned slowly to marvel at the upside-down world. Like me, she enjoyed variety and movement.

I’d also sing to her—made-up songs and musical scales—and I’d repeat words and sentences in a singsong way to keep us connected and amused. For her part, Lisa would gurgle sweet babbly baby noises that sounded to me like the equivalent of an abstract painting, having all the colors but no real form you could understand. Until, one day, to my utter astonishment, I realized that her sounds weren’t arbitrary. She was imitating every word, song, and tonal repetition with absolute precision. Suddenly her world opened up to me and I understood that she heard and repeated everything I shared with her. This mother and daughter call-and-response pulled the shades off my sadness every time. It was a wonder to me that my tiny baby could pick up so much and then turn it back around and talk to me with it. This is where the everyday mundane suddenly became magical. I had a magical child.

The one thing she didn’t repeat was this gravelly sound I made at the back of my throat when I got her out of bed or changed her diapers. I only kept making this sound because she was so amazed by it. She would look at me with laughter in her eyes, and she’d be riveted. It was as if this was the most remarkable sound in all existence and she was really impressed with me for being able to do it. I mean
really impressed,
as if I had insider knowledge and was passing the codes of the universe on to her. And who knows, maybe I was.

The first time Lisa smiled at me she was three months old and it broke out in thousands of rays like sunshine over a new world. Things were moving forward.

For Halloween that year I came up with costume ideas for my sister, her husband, and myself. I love to come up with costumes that express a person’s essence. While I don’t sew them, I tuck, fold, rip, cut, paste, pin, and tie materials into place. I was happy and breathless doing this, my hands moving in advance of my thinking. It was pure play. We had so much fun that day and Mark and Kathy kept saying, “Gawd, you really should be making a living at this.” I made Mark into the black and white man with the golden tear, an image I connected with Steve. They were quite alike, Mark and Steve. Both were off all charts intelligent, angst-ridden, and dramatic. Mark started with a top hat, but I did the rest by adding a cape, and painting a black-and-white checkerboard on his face. A golden tear at the corner of his eye was the finishing touch. I made my sister into a nun, a Mother Superior with massive folds of mauve and white cloth that she had around the house. She wore no makeup at all. As for me, I painted my face white and covered myself with a transparent mosquito net. I was a ghost. No kidding, right?

We drove to the party leaving our children with my sister’s babysitter, a caring, trustworthy woman who had children of her own. This was the first time I had given over my daughter’s care to anyone outside the family, having only left Lisa once with my dad and his wife for a couple of hours, and with my sister now and then to go to the store. It revived me immeasurably to be able to go out, and that Halloween I felt the blessed helium of my freedom. Shy from having been so homebound, I hesitated in finding my way into party mode, but with all the corn chips and salsa, the sangria and the music—with all the dancing and laughter—I was just starting to have fun when the babysitter arrived with Lisa beet red and splotchy from nonstop crying. The sitter had tried calming her for three hours without success. And since no one at the party was answering the phone, she eventually drove Lisa to me. Lisa bawled even harder when she was handed to me, because my face was unrecognizable covered in white paint and netting. So Kathy held her as the Mother Superior that night and Lisa finally stopped crying. Oh, the will of her, to cry for three hours straight! Up till then I’d never let her cry for over a minute or two. It broke my heart to see her in such distress, but Mark repeatedly reassured me that there had to be a history of hurtful repetitions before a child could be scarred. He kept saying, “Babies are resilient. She’s really, really, really okay.”