The Bite in the Apple: A Memoir of My Life with Steve Jobs

by Brennan, Chrisann

  Before I left to go on my trip to India, the Zen teacher, Kobun, had told me, “If you feel like coming home, first wait two weeks and then if you still feel like coming home, come home!” I had been in India for a year when I finally knew I was done. I also knew that my relationship with Greg was over. Our approach to living was so different that we were a constant aggravation to one another. It did not seem like a life partnership would be possible, and so I returned to the United States by myself.

  TWELVE

  PURE FUNCTION

  The afternoon I flew into Oakland airport from Hong Kong, I had to take public transportation across the bay because my family was confused by the dateline and thought I was arriving the next day. The doors were locked when I got to the house in Saratoga and no one would be around for hours. With little else to do, I sat outside and waited. It felt odd to be back in the grand materialism of California. Our neighborhood, with its empty streets and perfect lawns, seemed sterile after India. It was a mind-blowing contrast.

  By evening, however, my family had returned and I had the most wonderful time regaling my younger sisters and my father and his wife with stories of the year’s amazements. I had been a stranger in a strange land far too long and it was so good to be home. Home, where people knew me and I knew them. The next day I called Steve, who, at this point, was simply my friend. We met for dinner later that evening and ended up at his parents’ house, where he was living at the time. Paul and Clara were watching TV when we walked in. We said hello and went into Steve’s bedroom, where we sat on the floor and had a glass of port. I told Steve about my trip, and I remember that we talked about Deuteronomy that night, because I had read some contemporary essays about it on the flight home that had lit new concepts in my mind. I’d found Deuteronomy a mysterious and ugly word before reading about it, but afterward I was thrilled by the way it tumbled out of my mouth. I think this represented a new me to Steve.

  I had intended to go home that night, but Steve made a bed on the floor for us and we made love. It was two o’clock in the morning when Clara knocked on his door. “Is everything alright?” she asked. I was paralyzed with fear thinking that she would walk in and find me there, but the voice that emerged from Steve repatterned the very air with its blend of soft confident power. “I have been on a long, long journey,” he told her. He was looking at me but angling his voice toward the door. “Okay,” Clara said. She didn’t need to know more and so returned to bed. This call-and-response between mother and son was truth and it was beauty, and he had protected our space with it. This was a new Steve for me.

  Steve was haunted his whole life by the nature of his relationship with his parents but more than that, it was the nature of the life he had grown up in. I think he wondered if he was even in the right life. He made a lot of jokes about there being a big mistake, and something about a case of mistaken identity. It was one of his shticks. It was so charming to see him fall into this act because he was just so honest and funny about the loss. At bottom though, I think it showed that he worried constantly that something had been damaged or irrevocably lost due to the bungling at the time of the adoption, or perhaps because of the adoption itself.

  QUESTION: What does a person do about something that was lost in the past?

  ANSWER: Worry about how that loss might translate into losses in the future.

  It’s my feeling that these issues were coming to a head for Steve just as I had returned from India. I felt he looked to those around him to weigh in on his questions in a deeply sincere way. Had something been lost? Turning to others to give value to something in myself is not what I’m inclined to do, at least not in the same way. I’ve never felt that kind of trust. Yet, it’s a tender and honest trait that I’ve observed not just in Steve, but in our daughter, Lisa, and in Steve’s sister, Mona. Perhaps it’s an innate quality carried in their ancient Syrian DNA, connected to the importance of group consensus; it’s a characteristic that is completely open and vulnerable and looks to the group to ask, “Can you see, am I worthy?” Sometimes this quality strikes me as too dependent upon the opinions of others, while at other times it appears to me as the most remarkable wisdom. Steve usually radiated the sense of his being more precious and important than anyone in the world. But at that time he was looking outward for evaluation and his concerns touched my heart.

  Though I don’t remember any distinct conversations (except a bit of one with Robert Friedland), I do recall the sense of mounting consensus that seemed to lay down the necessary level of confidence in order for Steve to move into his destiny. I think that, prince that he was, Steve was looking to others to somehow move beyond his parents and reclaim his throne. It’s hard to say, but I do remember opening the Jobses’ screen door on a beautiful spring day and being struck with the feeling that not only were they okay for Steve, but maybe even perfect. In my mind, Paul, who was so practical and clear about the business of his days, and Clara, who was something of a giantess of good intention, were the right parents for Steve, or at least right enough. Perhaps they were what providence had arranged for. As I looked at their neutral sensibilities—the adamant no-frills quality of their lives, the blue-collar work ethic—I saw that all combined to provide the right endowment for what Steve needed for the man he would become.

  * * *

  I now believe that Kobun was behind everything. Eastern masters can remove a student’s karmic negativities so that he or she can progress with greater ease. It’s called the grace of the guru in India, and though I don’t know what this kind of knowledge is called in the Japanese tradition of enlightenment, I know it exists there, too. Kobun had many capacities as a spiritual teacher. He was skilled at unifying perceptions between groups of people, and at opening doors to allow for greater access. But was it the place of a spiritual teacher to remove a person’s karmic obstacles in order to engage in a business enterprise? Could it have been that Kobun was so inspired by Steve’s genius that he stepped out of his spiritual integrity to give the lad a leg up? Was Kobun a spiritual materialist? Maybe he was flipping switches behind his curtain without really understanding the implications. Members of the Zen community said many times that Kobun never abused his power. That made me uneasy, because people often repeat things when the opposite is true. Kobun was extraordinary and he was also beloved. But he was decidedly tricky.

  The great value of developing through difficulty, whether you think in terms of karma or psychology, is that it humanizes people. Being human is about the challenge of surmounting obstacles. Too much grace and we don’t really understand what things mean, and we can lose our way. Too much hardship and we never find our way. It’s a fine line to walk: while we want to succeed, the road that gets us there must be just bumpy enough to allow an appreciation for the effort made. That, in turn, allows compassion to flower and bear fruit. Was Kobun wise enough to have found the right balance for Steve?

  Compassion might not be valued highly enough today. Our elaborate systems of business and politics consider humanity to be less important than the bottom line. Long ago in 1976, Kobun gave Steve something—many things—that were good. But I also felt there was a kind of nudge-nudge wink-wink complicity between them. It seems to me that Kobun lifted Steve up, and in so doing, helped Steve avoid some bumps he would have done well to encounter. And maybe it is in this way that Steve lost some human breadth along the way.

  * * *

  Steve and I fell in love again. And one day that spring he bowed his head and told me that he knew we would fall in love months before I had returned from my trip. It was a profound admission, said with life-altering honesty. We were older now, diving deeper and redefining. This was our next step and it indicated larger responsibilities, which we both yearned for. Steve was open and in love with me, and sometimes at the end of his day when I walked into his office, I could feel and see the bright true colors of love come over him when he saw me. Steve’s reception of me was profound and that drew me closer. Our kisses were deeper and our l
ovemaking was of a different order. We were growing up and the stakes were higher. Steve and I had both changed.

  I was around to see how all of Steve’s changes were affecting his parents, too. They were so proud of him, but they were also hurt that Kobun had such influence in their son’s life. Though I don’t think there were flare-ups or that anyone said anything directly, at least when I was around, I knew they were sad and angered because I watched their expressions. Steve had taken the greatest care to thank his parents with the garden, and many other considerations—yet they seemed awkwardly displaced in their own home once the Zen master had taken over the inner sanctuary level of Steve’s education. In Eastern cultures, this transition—that of such a teacher choosing Steve as his student—would have been cause for the greatest possible pride and joy. Though poignant, it would have been the mark of all success and distinction. But Paul and Clara didn’t have this frame of reference, and I saw Steve walking very carefully around their pain. They thought they were being replaced—and in a sense they were.

  * * *

  One night when I was waiting for Steve to come home from work, I sat down to watch TV with Paul and Clara. TV was an important part of the Jobs household. They worked hard and had a wholesome tiredness that hung on mind and body, and this is how they relaxed and closed their days. Clara would sit on the La-Z-Boy chair, feet up, and slowly move the ball of her right foot back and forth for hours, as if keeping time for her family.

  The Jobses’ living room was something of a terminal for me, a way station between events. But I have come to appreciate that it was also the stage on which many important changes would be flagged. On this night, as I waited in what could be considered the most social time I’d ever had with Paul and Clara, the lights were low and the TV was blasting. It was dark outside and the blue screen took over the room with its aggressive noise. When Steve walked in, Clara turned off the TV, leaving the room painfully lit by a lamp’s single bulb, but blessedly quiet.

  Steve was carrying the first prototype of computer casing to show his parents. I watched as they oooh-ed and ahhh-ed over it, the whites of their eyes shining in the dim light. Steve stood at the end of the couch, tall and impressive, turning the hard plastic shell between his hands. That evening it seemed like Paul and Clara were the children, and Steve the proud parent. He was happy with the design and told us that the Italian company Apple had originally hired had come up with a literal head shape for the TV screen. A head for a computer screen! Steve shut his eyes and shuddered.

  It was on this one hallmark of an evening that I realized how unaware I was of everything he was doing during his workday. If I had not known Steve personally, I never would have paid attention to a rising star in the world of computers. If the Apple products had been ugly, I would have been even later to the show. I confess I don’t know Apple’s history except where it intersected with my own. Steve thought I lacked curiosity, but it wasn’t that. There was a level of hype around Apple and Steve that I could never key into. I found Steve interesting and beautiful for his refinement and intuition and poetic sensibilities, but I found his business personality caustic and unappealing. Still, the plastic case he was holding was concrete, and that night I began to pay more attention.

  One of the most unusual changes I’d noticed in Steve was his new way of watching TV. It had been a passive thing before, but now he sat up very close to the screen and studied. All the muscles in his supersensitive face twitched along with the drama, while his eyes followed every minute action. He watched as if he was reading, as if he was processing an enormous amount of information. Completely engaged, he strained to collect and calculate, peering into the TV as if he was trying to see around doorways and through walls. To this day, I have never seen anyone watch TV as he did. Not by a long shot. At the time I felt that he used the phenomenon of the TV to accelerate his learning about the world of power and sexual relationships. I also noticed that he turned the TV and the radio off if there was messaging in the program that he didn’t want to receive. It was a kind of spiritual discernment and discipline for him. Most people vegetate, taking everything in when they watch a show, but for Steve, TV had been turned into a tool for creative self-imagining and insight into building power.

  Another day that spring I noticed a piece of paper with my name on it lying on the Jobses’ dining room table. I was running through the house to the backyard when I saw it. Swinging to a stop, I picked it up, and found that Steve had had my astrological chart drawn up. There was one for him, too. Steve walked up as I was looking at it.

  “Whoa,” I said. “Did you have this done?” I was surprised and also curious that he’d taken the initiative because he’d once told me that astrology wasn’t a worthy symbol-system for self-analysis.

  “Yes … there’s a computer program that does astrological charts and I had them done for us.”

  “Why?” was the only thing I could think to ask. As I examined the colorful diagrammatic splays I noticed that all of Steve’s planets were on the top of the horizon and that all of mine, except one, were below. I had one planet in the upper hemisphere in the 7th house.

  “Wow, all your planets are above and most of mine are below.”

  “What do you think it means?” he asked.

  “I don’t know at all,” I said. “Do you?”

  He just looked at me. In the past when Steve asked me what I thought something meant, he was kind. But this time his lack of response had a different quality. Despite what I had considered our renewed closeness, I was beginning to notice a deep unfriendliness etching into our relationship. And I was dodging it more often than I liked to admit.

  With regard to the astrological charts, I soon found out that the top hemisphere meant a life out in the world while the bottom indicated a predominately introspective life. I was disappointed to hear this because I’m naturally so extroverted and was looking forward to a big life. This must have been obvious to the astrologer explaining it to me, because he took pains to point out that both ways of life can be fulfilling.

  * * *

  Perhaps Kobun was influencing Steve’s attitude toward me at the time. During my first meeting with the sensei—this was long before I went to India—he spoke to me about my clothing. He said, “Clothing is not just for you. It’s for other people who look at you, too.” He said it should be modest and simple and not offend people. Not more modest and simple, but modest and simple. It wasn’t a bad first teaching because clothing speaks to the intersection of the inner and outer realities—where personality and spirituality express as one and individual meets community. But I was modest in my dress and wondered why he was telling me this. It seemed so superficial. Moreover, I felt that Kobun was slightly shaming me with this information, that he was telling me that I wasn’t enough as I was. In total it alerted me that something was missing. I remember thinking, This isn’t what we should be talking about. More to the point, This guy doesn’t see me. He doesn’t know who I am. I felt angry and invisible. I didn’t know how respond to him.

  Later, when I was more savvy, I wondered about the socioeconomic dynamic around Kobun. Japanese culture has a system in place to support spiritual teachers of Kobun’s stature. American culture does not. Japanese culture is highly structured, American culture is not. When Kobun came to the United States, he was surrounded by an elite group of educated, wealthy, and in some cases, famous people. It made sense: these were the people who would be naturally attracted to Zen coming into America. They were the forward thinkers, the early adopters. With these backers, Kobun had every hope and expectation that he would become the best Zen master he could possibly be. I didn’t have the markings of elite society: no wealth, no fabulous education, but I am smart and I’ve always been something of an early adopter.

  I wonder now if Kobun didn’t see who I was or if he had simply decided that I wouldn’t be useful to him. I was the youngest female in a community of accomplished people five to twenty-five years my senior. I had little life
experience and no promise of fame, so perhaps Kobun decided that I was not important. It wasn’t that he was unkind, but if he was looking to externals as an indicator of my capacity, I can imagine that I didn’t look like much. These are my guesses, but I still wonder why he was not awake to the seeds inside all the people who came to him? What kind of master was he? Why didn’t he recognize me?

  Kobun was a worthy teacher. I returned again and again to listen to his talks, to practice zazen, and to call on his advice. The Los Altos Zendo had a huge door with a wide opening. I felt welcome. Indeed, people had told me, “You get what is going on here.” I am sure I was at the right place at the right time. But I would never receive any kind of real teachings from this teacher. Eventually I’d understood this because of how he treated me compared to Steve.

  When I had returned from India, Kobun told me, “You weren’t human before you left but now you are. What happened over there?” There were many times that he asked me, “What happened in India?” Repeating and repeating, “You weren’t human before.” He would laugh and sort of tease me when he said this, but he seemed genuinely curious. I didn’t know how I was supposed to answer such an ignorant question. I tried to respond politely, while inwardly I thought his frank views were cruel.

  Years later, a spiritual teacher told me that Kobun had not worked with me because, as she said, “He simply did not recognize you as an American female destined for enlightenment in this lifetime. He’d never seen it in your form before.” At the time, however, I didn’t know enough to move on from Kobun because I didn’t know how to ask the right questions. People who know how to articulate good questions amaze me. It denotes layers of experience that I didn’t have back then. Jim Black—Trout—was such a person. A lay monk at the Zendo (he was the person who got me straight about Kobun’s name on my first evening there), he looked like my idea of Little John in Robin Hood’s band of Merry Men. He worked with children, had a jovial round belly, and a face that was sane, kind, and intelligent.