Seymore's Interlude Read online

Seymore’s Interlude

  By Ann Castle

  Copyright 2011 Ann Castle

   

  Seymore’s Interlude

  Introduction

  Flying just isn’t what it used to be. In days past I actually got dressed up to go on a plane trip. Now, it’s like riding a local transit bus with all its smells and advertising, delays, stops and jostling. I’ll forego a complaint about today’s security checks and legalized insults.

  Nevertheless I am sitting on a jumbo flying south to Los Angeles on a mission I only vaguely imagined. There is a film maker in LA who thinks my book would make a good movie and wants to buy it. I’m not sure that’s a good idea or even if the interest is genuine, but as my Aunt Sarah used to say, “In for a penny, in for a pound” (she loved anything that was English, mostly the silly stuff).

  A limo has been arranged to take me to an office in Beverly Hills to talk to a man I don’t know about a book I love, how much money he wants to give me and how much control of my work I am willing to give him. Since the book has done very well, his position is weak because I don’t need the money. It is further eroded because I love control and will fight for it; it’s the reason I still own the movie rights. A meeting of the minds seems unlikely.

  Since most of this book is really my Aunt Sarah’s doing, I intend to stand up for her interest first. Having gone to the mat with several publishers before the book was printed I have every intention to see the pending negotiation through to the best possible ending for me and Aunt Sarah (and Seymore too); which will probably mean no sale. I almost feel sorry for the movie man and I haven’t even met him. This may be a waste of his time.

  I’ve seen some movies based on books and the track record is not so good in my opinion. The author’s intention and the character’s roles (in this case real not fictional characters, or at least some of them are real) are not very well adapted to the moving pictures especially in books like mine where most of the events take place in a previously unrevealed reality. The Experimental Station at the center of the story just wasn’t there before Seymore made it and Sarah found it. All I could do was describe it. Not sure that a film maker can actually make it into pictures that seem right, are honest and conveys the true meaning of the astonishing events that characterized Sarah’s life and the creation of the station and Seymore Place.

  The material for the book came to me by way of inheritance. It was specifically left for me by my Aunt Sarah. The will made it clear that no one was to see her collection of notes and memorabilia except me. After the estate was distributed the two big, sealed boxes were delivered along with a couple of pieces of costume jewelry, a Gucci bag, and several pieces of old china (the pattern is Elizabeth, which is my name). I carefully washed and put the lovely china into my collection, put the jewelry in my jewelry box and joyfully carry the handsome vintage Gucci bag on special occasions like today.

  The two big boxes were put in the store room in the garage. They stayed there for nearly 15 years. Occasionally they would slip my mind, but most often they were a nuisance memory, a gentle haunting, that only an unfinished obligation can produce. Finally one day, in a fit of clearing out and cleaning up I concluded that I had to either do something about the boxes and their contents or get rid of them. A large fire was my first choice.

  But as with everything in this tale, fate (or kismet or whatever) was more powerful than any other force, and, recklessly, I opened the smaller of the two boxes. It was packed with my Aunt Sarah’s life history made up of notes, diaries, photographs, musings, music, art, drawings, all held together by what I came to learn was an amazing series of events in two separate but related places. The contents of the two boxes covered four decades. Inside on the top of the larger box was a note from Aunt Sarah that said:

  Dearest Elizabeth,

  I am leaving all the materials about the extraordinary lives that Seymore and I have shared to you. I’m not at all sure you are pleased. But I do know you are talented and reliable and that you are the only one who can make something of all these cherished bits and pieces. Seymore and I (mostly me) are relying on you to bring order to this collection and do something good with it. No rush. I am confident that whatever you do and whenever you do it will be just right.

  Love to you always from your Aunt Sarah.

  If I had stopped at box one I could still have burned everything, but having read the note I was on the hook and the details and information inside the cardboard boxes took over my life.

  The take over resulted in Aunt Sarah’s story being written, but not without lots of fits and starts, and hours upon hours of reading her scratchy handwriting in diaries, on note pads and in her professional files; not to mention sorting, filing and preserving mementos, personal drawings and even a small piece of music.

  The professional files had proved the most helpful in reconstructing the adventure that initiated Sarah’s research into out of body events and other unfamiliar states of reality. The records she had kept of the experiences of patients who had been comatose were fascinating and provided the support I needed to personally get past the you’ve-got-to-be-kidding part of her work. If I had relied only on the other materials, you’d be reading some other author’s book right now.

  She was a fine psychologist and had done years and years of research into the in-coma experiences of individuals as well as consultation and support for their families. She was quite well known and her work was much admired. Her husband, a medical doctor who specialized in head injuries, had been her main source of clients in the beginning of her work, but later she traveled extensively to both train and consult with other psychologists and doctors about the impact of deep coma.

  What I discovered from organizing and reading the material in the two boxes was that what I thought I knew about my Aunt Sarah was just a smidgen of the incredible depths of her knowledge and experience. As I gradually began to understand the contents of her collection of “bits and pieces” I knew I wanted to make the contents public. So I began to write.

  What I learned right away was that writing Aunt Sarah’s story meant writing the story of characters and events that I could never have imagined. And yet in their own way they were and still are real and my bet is that Aunt Sarah is still enjoying their company.

  So, I am honored to offer you the story I gleaned from the two boxes, my memories and from other sources that are quite extraordinary.