This week’s blog is in memory of Barry Sterman, neurofeedback luminary, who sadly died on New Year’s Eve.
Admittedly I am not too much of a movie person. I always say I am way too stingy with my reading time to cut into wanting to watch movies. Somehow my husband talked me into watching the Barbie movie on our recent holiday vacation, and I was reminded why. The exception that I make is when I am making cheese which often requires stirring the vat for 60-75 or even 90 minutes, sometimes a movie is the way to go. So, I tend to collect titles of films that might pair well with an upcoming batch. My Monterey Jack recipe calls for 70 minutes of stirring, just right for the Joan Baez documentary I have been saving: “I am a Noise.” I had read about it and heard interviews with Joan and various of its other characters, and of course, her/our era had me very interested. So, all set up with my ingredients all in, I started my stir and hit play.
As is not infrequently the case, I was disappointed, and found it rather “flat.” I can’t quite put my finger on why, except that it did not stir me emotionally, as I stirred the pot, I was not terribly moved by her as a character, although I did love the scenes of Bob Dylan looking about fourteen years old, and the music was great. I guess I found her much more compelling in the interviews, although I had no idea she was such a spectacular dancer. That I liked!
What moved me and got me thinking, was Joan’s little sister Mimi. I remember hearing the music of Mimi and Richard Farina, for a short time, although I guess I did not register back then just how short of a time it was. And folk music not being my preferred tempo, I did not familiarize myself with it that much. I always kind of thought of her as “Joan Baez’s sister”. In the film, Joan talked about how Mimi had struggled in the shadow of her iconic older sister, and how hard Joan’s quick and massive fame was for her. It pulled them apart for some time. I could surely understand that.
My older sister was much more outgoing, popular, and visible than I ever was. We looked enough alike, at least for a while, that I not infrequently heard the question, “Which one are you?” Or the common refrain, “OH! You’re Becki’s sister!” I wanted to shriek, “NO! I’m Ruth!” But of course, I didn’t. And it was even more complicated by the fact that I adored Becki, and still do. I was puzzled about, what it was about me that I was so invisible, gauzey, translucent. And Mimi’s sister? Larger than life.
Mimi met her partner and later husband Richard Farina when she was barely seventeen and married him at 18. With him, she became visible and even had a new last name distinct from her sister’s well-known name. The couple sang and performed together, as I said, for a short time. Richard died suddenly and tragically in a motorcycle accident at the age of 22. Young Mimi was devastated. And all the while Joan’s star was steadily rising. Mimi was the one who stayed on my mind after the credits ran at the end of the movie.
What’s Fair
Sibling relationships have always seemed to me so powerful and so underrated in our field. I never understood why. Whenever I have a client who struggles with jealousy or a gnawing vulnerability about “fairness” that is immediately where I want to look first: what went on between and among sibs. And often neglect is the seemingly inevitable result of simply too many, and not enough to go around: not enough love, attention, resources, time, space, even food sometimes. Some of the most tragically neglected people I have known were the youngest of a very large clan. Similarly, often the oldest had a different version of neglect, as they were pressed into becoming default surrogate parents to the little ones, often much too young, becoming not only self-reliant but caretakers, a perhaps less obvious expression of neglect- especially as it may have brought with it some sense of value or importance at least to someone.
I know I have always been infinitely grateful that I had two wonderful sisters. Although I am not a fan of local author, Michael Chabon’s fiction, I loved his memoir Manhood for Amateurs, which begins with him declaring that his story began when he was five because that was when his brother was born. Before that, he had no one to tell it to. I never forgot that. And my sisters also serve as kind of a collective memory, especially as my own memory is so spotty. My husband was an only child, and I think the loneliness of neglect is that much more so, lacking other kids in the family. Certainly in his case.
I went through a phase when I read whatever I could find about siblings. I had a few clients and friends over the years who had had siblings die, which I found unthinkably sad, the idea of it simply undid me. I remember one book in particular, a memoir that involved the author being a bone marrow donor to save or at least extend the life of her severely ill sister, a powerful story of sister love.
Often these relationships are very complex and textured and go through many iterations throughout the lifespan. I have always appreciated that because we are connected by blood, there is always another chance, should a rupture seem particularly threatening. And I feel terribly sad for those who irreversibly pull apart.
I am truly amazed and impressed by siblings who are able to gracefully take pleasure and pride in their siblings’ greatness. I have often been rather awed by Venus Williams! How does she do it? How does one endure the superstar grandeur of Serena Williams, year after year, including competing with her and against her? I strive to be so.
Mimi died of cancer in 2001 at the age of 56, but not without one last time transforming Joan’s life. It was she who punctured her illustrious sister’s dissociation and brought to her awareness the sexual trauma they had both suffered at the hands of their father. Joan had “successfully” blocked it, from consciousness for almost 50 years, all the while suffering agonizing, often disabling, and heretofore unexplained panic attacks, excruciating anxiety and chronic sleeplessness. Like her sister, and her mother, and like many of us, Joan struggled to hold both views: her admiration and love for the father she remembered, and the stark reality of what he had done. With the gentle push from Mimi, Joan did the work that would gradually release her from a lifetime of symptoms.
Sometimes only a sibling is close enough to have a profound impact. With all our ups and downs through the years and decades, our different reads on a largely common history; and our divergent curiosity about ancestry, different lives, and priorities, I am infinitely grateful for my two beloved sisters, growing up together in the same “litter.” And I do not mean to ascribe less meaning and importance to brothers! I simply didn’t have any. Although I always wished for a big brother!
Joan Baez’s life has changed, quieted, like most octogenarians, (with the exceptions perhaps of Mick Jagger et al who at 80 are about to go on tour again.) It is more solitary and less lime-lit. She gardens, paints, draws and writes, realizing her voice is not what it was. She is perhaps for the first time, as many of us after quelling the stifled trauma monsters, content.
In Memoriam
As I age, I see more and more fixtures of my whole life and development passing on. It is one of those undeniable truths of life. I don’t want to make a habit of ending on a sad note, but I also wanted, if sadly, to name the passing of Neurofeedback luminary Barry Sterman on New Year’s Eve. He was 88. Sterman engineered the pioneering research curing cats of their seizures with EEG Biofeedback. All the rest is history. I had the privilege of attending a workshop with him once, probably in 2009. In it, he showed photos of the famous cat research. I treasure this shot! He was reputed as wryly saying, “The problem with neurofeedback is that every damn thing we do works!” Thanks Barry! Rest well.
Today’s Song:
