Finding Magic

by Sally Quinn

  I was scared and excited when King led the March on Washington on the Mall. I half wanted to go but was afraid there would be riots, and my parents, also afraid, forbade me to. My German “Nazi” step-grandmother, a devout churchgoing Lutheran, had called from Savannah the day before the march to warn my family to leave town. “You have to get away from those African bullies,” she commanded. That was almost enough to persuade me to go to the march. I watched every minute of the “I Have a Dream” speech on television and had chills throughout.

  Fundamentalist Christians were denouncing King and the speech, left and right. How could they call themselves Christian? Again, they were proclaiming their Christianity without living it. “We’re all brothers and sisters in Christ.” “God made man in his own image.” “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” And not least, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It seemed that those most bigoted were those who proudly proclaimed their piety. None of it made any sense to me.

  The words in Tartuffe stuck in my mind and are still there today. Tartuffe himself is a pious imposter who convinces the gullible and wealthy Orgon that he is holy and should take him in, then swindles everything Orgon has away from him. Orgon is the only one who doesn’t see through Tartuffe. In one brilliant scene, which stands up today as well as it did in the seventeenth century, Tartuffe’s brother-in-law, Cléante, tries to convince him of Tartuffe’s evil.

  There’s true and false in piety, as in bravery,

  And just as those whose courage shines the most

  In battle, are the least inclined to boast,

  So those whose hearts are truly pure and lowly

  Don’t make a flashy show of being holy.

  There’s a vast difference, so it seems to me,

  Between true piety and hypocrisy.

  How many times since I first read those words have I turned to the play, especially that passage, to remind myself that so little has changed? Hypocrisy is one of the repulsive aspects that lend themselves to religion and vice versa.

  No place lends itself to hypocrisy more than Washington, D.C. One cannot get elected president without proclaiming one’s faith, the more pious on the hustings, the better. Ironically, people don’t talk much about their religion in Washington. Long ago, my friend the astrologer Caroline Casey called the place a “spiritual hardship post.” We know what politicians have to do to get elected, we understand how distasteful it is, so better just pretend religion doesn’t exist while we’re here. The idea of living a double life is too embarrassing. The only problem is that in the pre-television and pre-Internet days, candidates could get away with extolling their religious beliefs out on the trail with nobody really paying attention. Now, though, hypocrisy sells.

  It was after reading the play that religion, politics, human nature, and my own sense of morality were brought into clearer focus. Tartuffe has served me well as a beacon of authenticity throughout my life.

  * * *

  My senior year at Smith I was dating a guy at Harvard Law School and was spending quite a bit of time in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One weekend we went to a party with some friends of his. It was quite late, we had been to dinner first, and initially I could barely see through the haze of smoke in the room. I don’t think it was all cigarettes, either. It was redolent of a funny smell, but at that point I had never been around marijuana so I wouldn’t have known what it was. This was definitely a different crowd from the one that I usually spent time with. It was a very bohemian scene. I didn’t drink liquor in those days. Nobody had wine so I must have had a Coke or water. I did smoke so I pulled out a cigarette. The next thing I knew this very good-looking, rugged older man with shaggy hair reached over and lit my cigarette, looking deeply into my eyes, a half smile on his face.

  He introduced himself as Timothy Leary. I had heard of him, certainly; almost every college student in the Northeast had. He was a famous psychologist who had introduced psychedelic drugs, especially LSD, to the university and ran the Harvard Psilocybin Project. His motto was famous. “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Later Richard Nixon would describe Leary as being “the most dangerous man in America.”

  I was immediately taken with Leary, who really put a burn on me, as we said at the time. He began telling me about his project and how exciting the experience of taking LSD was. I was mesmerized. I found him extremely sexy, and he was doing everything he could to encourage that. I had no idea where my date went, and I didn’t care, either. Leary asked me if I had ever had an ecstatic experience or an intense religious experience. I said I hadn’t. “It will change your life,” he whispered. We ended up sitting on the sofa. His face was very close to mine. His eyelids were half closed.

  He talked about how many primitive tribes used psychedelics in their religious rituals and that taking them could be truly mystical, could bring you closer to God and nature. He invited me to come back to Cambridge and spend the following weekend with him. He offered to introduce me to psychedelics. I said yes. “We will have a spiritual experience,” he promised. He took out a small cream-colored piece of paper from his pocket and a pen and wrote down his name and telephone number. He told me to call him at the beginning of the week and we would make plans. I said yes.

  I don’t remember leaving the party or discussing the conversation with my date. When I got back to Smith, I excitedly told a few of my closest friends. One of them was outraged. “Are you crazy?” she yelled at me. “All he wants to do is get you high so he can have sex with you. He’s notorious for that.”

  She put the fear of God in me. I was a virgin after all. I didn’t call him that week and I never heard from him. I’m not sure I ever told him my name. I didn’t throw away his card, though. I put it in my wallet. I kept thinking I might get in touch with him at some point. There was something so compelling about him, and it wasn’t just a sexual attraction. The appeal was the notion of having a true religious experience, of having a close-up encounter with the divine. That, more than anything, was what intrigued me and really turned me on.

  I carried his card for years, transferring it with my other cards whenever I would change wallets. About twenty years ago my wallet was stolen out of my purse in a crush when I was boarding a train at Union Station in Washington. I didn’t discover it right away. When I finally realized it was gone, it wasn’t that I was so upset about losing the money or my driver’s license. I was upset because I had lost my shot at taking LSD with Timothy Leary. I had missed my chance to have that particular transcendent moment, the idea of which I had held on to for so long. Until I lost his card, I had not realized it meant so much to me. Timothy Leary died that year.

  * * *

  Shortly after I met Leary I had had a reading of my astrological chart that was endlessly promising. I had worked the summer before as assistant technical librarian at the Institute for Defense Analyses, a conservative think tank. I had a great boss who was a lot of fun, but I knew nothing and cared less about being a military librarian. In fact, a librarian of any kind I am not. I was terrible at it and I hated the job. However, it paid well and I had to have a job every summer to earn my spending money.

  What I couldn’t understand was what had happened to the thoughts from that stellar reading. The only thing that had gotten me through that past year was the theater, but I knew even that wasn’t enough. I also knew I was wasting my college years by not studying, but acting was the only activity I was motivated to engage in. It is clear now that I was looking for meaning in my life. I was too young (or too preoccupied with other things) to understand what the emptiness I felt was all about. There seemed to be a black hole in the pit of my stomach that was spreading to my head and heart.

  Chapter 7

  I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.

  —J. B. Priestley

  My tenure at Smith did not have a particularly illustrious ending. Having spent so much time
in the theater and none at all in the library, according to the dean I graduated at the bottom of my class, the very bottom. I figured this was better than graduating second from the bottom. My parents were thrilled that I had actually made it through.

  What I cared about was that I had been accepted at the Monomoy Theatre in Chatham, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod to do summer stock. Next stop, Broadway! I had been “discovered” by an MGM talent scout when I played Sabina in Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth my senior year. He was going to make me a star. His name was Dudley Wilkinson. I carried his card around for years the way I carried Timothy Leary’s.

  The work schedule at the Monomoy was exhausting. We probably averaged four hours of sleep a night. Aside from acting, we did everything, including help with the building of sets, selling tickets, printing programs, and even sweeping out the theater. We took all our meals together and collapsed at the end of the day, only to try and memorize our lines. I was playing Lydia Languish in Richard Sheridan’s The Rivals, so I had my work cut out for me. It had become clear, though I had my heart set on becoming a great tragedienne, that I was really cut out for comedy. I had actually played Lady Anne in Shakespeare’s gruesome Richard III, and I made the scene so screamingly funny that people were rolling in the aisles. (Or at least that’s how I remember it.) My penchant for comedy has served me well—especially as a journalist in Washington and even more so as a religion reporter. When you’re looking for meaning in life, one of the things that stands out is humor. The expression “from the sublime to the ridiculous” becomes profound. In the end, one good way to get through life intact is to laugh.

  While working at the Monomoy I wasn’t dating at all. The men in the troupe were so involved with themselves that I don’t think they knew the women existed. There was very little chance of meeting anyone. However, I did get a call from a guy who was a friend of a friend, asking me out. He sounded nice on the phone so I agreed to see him on the one night we had off.

  He was tall, dark, and heart-stoppingly handsome. He was also brilliant, funny, witty, a talented musician, successful, wise, a great athlete, and kind. He had graduated from one Ivy League college and was already teaching, at the age of twenty-three, at another. I fell instantly in love. So did he. He was working on a book, staying at his parents’ summer house nearby.

  We were inseparable from the moment we saw each other, at least during the times I was free. I, however, began to get less than four hours of sleep so I could meet him at odd hours. I drank so much coffee trying to stay awake that summer that I still can hardly bear the smell of it.

  We often would sneak out to the beach or to his car to make out but never did more than that. I was still a virgin and he knew it. I was so impressed with his restraint, but I have to admit I was a bit frustrated as well. Some nights when I was free I would go to his parents’ house to stay over. He never once came into my room. It was all very chaste.

  At one point that summer my parents decided to come up from Washington for a weekend. I couldn’t have been more excited. I was anxious for them to meet my new love. I had told them I’d met the man I was going to marry. He hadn’t actually proposed but I knew he would. It was just a matter of time.

  My parents took us out to dinner and really seemed to like him. What wasn’t to like? He was charming, polite, smart, engaging, everything you could wish for in a son-in-law. I was so proud of him. I was especially excited because he had asked me to go for a walk on the beach with him after dinner. He had something he wanted to talk to me about. There was no doubt in my mind that this was going to be the big moment.

  It was a beautiful night, not too chilly as was often the case on the Cape. The stars were out by the millions and, of course, there was a full moon, which made the sand twinkle as we walked barefoot down the beach holding hands. I was in a swoon. I was wearing a blue-and-beige printed full-skirted dress that swirled in the breeze and made me feel like a fairy princess. I was laughing and chatting away, so full of joy I could barely contain myself. He seemed unusually quiet, but I just assumed he was gearing up for the big question.

  Suddenly he stopped. He pulled me to him and kissed me, a long loving, lingering kiss. I thought I would faint. Then he held me away from him. “I have something to tell you,” he said. I held my breath.

  “I’m impotent.”

  At first I didn’t think I had heard him correctly. I wasn’t actually sure I understood what he was saying.

  “Sally, I’m impotent,” he said more forcefully. His voice was cracking with emotion. “I’ve always been. All my life. I’ve never had an erection.”

  He waited. I said nothing. I was in shock. I didn’t know how to respond. I knew this was terrible news, but, as a virgin, I didn’t actually realize how terrible.

  “I love you,” he said. “I’ve never been in love like this before. But I can’t marry you. In fact, I can’t be with you anymore. It’s not fair to you. I have nothing to give you.” The tears were pouring down his face now.

  I tried to persuade him it was okay. That I loved him so much that we could overcome this. I insisted that sex wasn’t the most important thing in the world, anyway. I just wanted to be with him. That was all that mattered. In my heart I’m not sure I believed that, but the idea of losing him was not acceptable.

  He put his arms around me and we held each other for the longest time, overcome with emotion. Finally he said it was time to go and we walked silently back to the car and he dropped me off at the theater. I didn’t kiss him. I just got out of the car and walked away, not looking back. He didn’t say anything.

  The following night I had to perform. I walked through my part in a daze. I still couldn’t quite process what had happened and what it meant. I was so confused. I didn’t hear from him. After the performance, my parents took me out for fried clams. I couldn’t eat. They knew something was wrong, but I kept insisting it was just that I didn’t feel well. They drove me back to the theater. They were leaving the following morning so I wouldn’t see them again until the end of the summer. I was feeling desperately alone and bereft. When they stopped the car and told me good night, I started to cry deep racking sobs. My mother put her arm around me and stroked my hair. They were both begging me to tell them what was wrong. Embarrassed as I was, mortified really, I couldn’t hold back any longer.

  I related what I had learned the night before. I said, “He told me last night. He says we can’t see each other again.”

  There was a long silence. My mother held me tighter and continued stroking me. “Oh, darlin’,” she kept saying. Daddy said nothing.

  We sat there in the car, not speaking for a while. Then my father spoke up.

  “The guy’s a Jew,” he said.

  I was stunned. This from the man who helped liberate Dachau?! But what did it have to do with anything anyway? What made my father think that my boyfriend was Jewish? What prompted him to say it? What made him react the way he did? In retrospect, I think he was trying to make me feel better. In Daddy’s mind, the fact that my friend was Jewish precluded any marriage between us. He was opposed to my marrying outside what was his faith, not mine. His thinking must have been that since I couldn’t marry the man I loved because of his religion, then it was just as well he had this problem that would make a marriage impossible in any case.

  I never felt quite the same way about my father again. The pedestal I had put him on crumbled before my eyes. He had been like a god to me. Now, yet another deity had turned out not to be real.

  * * *

  I finally called my friend a few days later and insisted that he make a doctor’s appointment to have a physical. He had never told anyone about his problem, not even a doctor. I offered to go with him, which I did, and waited in the car. After the appointment, he came out smiling. There was nothing physically wrong with him, he was told. It was psychological. He needed to start therapy immediately, which could take years. He drove me back and we sat in the car. He strongly suggested and I agreed that
we shouldn’t see each other anymore. Years (in the plural, clearly) was too long to wait and I had a life to lead. Interestingly enough, my ardor for him had cooled. Even though I didn’t really know what I was missing, I understood it was too important to give up. My sexuality was budding, and there was something mysterious and magical there that I felt I couldn’t reach without consummating our love. I had a spiritual feeling for him, but I seemed to know I needed more.

  We hugged good-bye, I got out of the car, and watched him drive away. The sadness I felt was all-encompassing.

  Years later I read that he married somebody famous. I was happy for him. I also was so grateful to him that he had had the strength and courage to let me go.

  Chapter 8

  That’s the thing with magic. You’ve got to know it’s still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you.

  —Charles de Lint, “Ghosts of Wind and Shadow,” in Dreams Underfoot: The Newford Collection

  The day John F. Kennedy was shot in November 1963 I was at our home in Arlington glued to my television, as was everyone in the country and many around the world. The only time I took a break was to walk over to Arlington Cemetery to try and see where they were going to put the grave.

  Until then, I had never officially been to a funeral. In fact, I was against any kind of ceremony or ritual, even though, and perhaps because, I lived at Fort Myer, a U.S. Army post next to Arlington Cemetery and watched the daily funerals, the sounds of the horses clopping along carrying the caissons, the bugles playing “Taps.”