Nothing Was the Same by Kay Redfield Jamison Page A

glass by
glass? What will tell me that you are
toxic? In Los Angeles I can call Dan
Auerbach, Who do I call in London;
Anthony storr, the Darlingtons?
I ara not glad the black hole Is there
but I am glad I have seen it. When you
fall in love with a star you accept
solar flairs, black holes and all .
Love ,
R
    He had always thought of me as an intense star, he said, alluding to the last paragraph. He brought out a small box and gave it to me. “This is for your solar flares and the black holes. And for our shooting stars over Washington.” Inside was a gold ring with sixteen small stars on it. He dipped it in my wine and put it on my finger, next to my wedding ring and the gold ring he had given me in Rome.
    “To stars,” he said.
    I reminded him of the quotation from Byron’s Don Juan that I had used in dedicating one of my books to him: “To those who, by the dint of glass and vapour, / Discover stars, and sail in the wind’s eye.”
    “To you,” I said. “To safe sailing.”
    When I look back on it now, my Valentine’s gift to Richard was an absurdly optimistic one. I had made reservations for us to spend a week in Big Sur in early April. We had not been there together and it was something we had always wanted to do. It was improbable, but not impossible, to do it now. The trip would be long but manageable; once in Big Sur, we could read and drive along the coast and mull and enjoy ourselves. We could relax; we could stop time again. Richard expressed concerns about the practicalities but was enthusiastic. When we got home, he sat down with my maps of Big Sur and I watched him with delight. Our trip was something to reach for, a race of hope against death.
    Within the month, we knew that we would not go to Big Sur together. Richard was too sick. I told him I planned to cancel my lecture at the University of California at Davis, as well as the trip to Big Sur, but he was vehement that I not do this. “You’re exhausted,” he said, “and we have a difficult time ahead.” I argued that I didn’t want to go anywhere without him, but he insisted, and he was right. I was exhausted, physically and mentally. For three years I had been taking him to appointments at Hopkins and visiting him when he was in the hospital, sometimes driving from Washington to Baltimore and back twice a day; waiting with him for the results of scans and blood tests, meeting with doctors, requesting consultations, getting prescriptions filled; reading up on his illnesses and treatments; fixing meals and looking after the house. I was hopelessly behind in my work, struggling to maintain my psychological bearings, and trying to keep up his spirits and those of our friends and colleagues. Above all, I was worried sick about him.
    We compromised. I would go to Davis for a day to give my talk, and then drive down to Big Sur for two or three days. My mother said she would come to Washington to help look after Richard while I was gone; she also said she strongly agreed with him that I needed a few days off. She told me that I sounded exhausted and that she was worried about me. She felt, like Richard, that Big Sur was exactly what I needed. I felt guilty about leaving and was fearful that Richard would get worse. Terrible things could happen quickly.
    Richard and my mother were right. I needed Big Sur. I needed to stand at the edge of the ocean and see the Big Sur coast and the mountains and renew some of what was broken inside of me. Even if that renewal lasted only as long as it would take to get me through Richard’s death, it would be an essential thing. Big Sur gave me back some of my spirit, and that, in turn, I gave back to Richard.
    I went to Pfeiffer Beach shortly after I got to Big Sur and read the note Richard had given to me before I left Washington. “We wanted to do this for so long and didn’t,” he had written in his childlike scrawl. “We have done other things. It will not happen in this lifetime and, as you know, I