Sutterwriters

Lawrence Spann was born in Buffalo, New York and has lived and worked in Florida, North Carolina, and California. He is director of Sutter's LAMP (Literature, Arts, and Medicine Program) where he facilitates writing groups with medical patients, caregivers, and health professionals. Lawrence's undergraduate degree is in English from the University of Miami where he minored in psychology and philosophy. His job experience includes working on a garbage truck, as a summer camp counselor, on construction crews and as an ocean lifeguard. He entered the medical field as an ambulance driver and paramedic and completed physician assistant training and a master's degree program at Duke University. At Duke, Lawrence served as program director of DUPAC (Duke University's Preventive Approach to Cardiology) and Duke's Rice Diet Program. Along these same lines, Lawrence was executive director of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, CA, which employed diet, exercise, stress management and group support as adjuncts to traditional medical therapy for heart patients. He also spent four years as a clinical PA with the Duke Coagulation Service.

In December 2003, Lawrence earned his Ph.D. in creative writing with emphasis in the medical humanities. He compiled and introduced Poet Healer: Contemporary Poems for Health & Healing as part of his dissertation. He is married to Elizabeth Robinson, who is an advanced practice nurse.

Introduction, Chapter 6

Although I grew up in the snow, I have never been skiing. I spent most of my early years in an indoor swimming pool. My dad insisted that I swim. I think he had it planned before I was born. I was in the water when I was six months old. He was an alcoholic and the Buffalo Athletic Club (B.A.C.) was his watering hole. I'd go to the pool while he sat in the bar and drank. As far as I could tell he'd spend every waking moment there if he could. His pattern was to go to the bar, drink and then sweat it out in the steam room. It was always a chore for him to get me to go with him. I knew I was his ticket out of the house and I played it for all it was worth. My mother never objected if he went as long as he took me along. I always protested. He would cajole me but soon lose patience and physically put me in the car. Once I got in the water though, he couldn't get me out. I played for hours, often by myself. I dove for rings and explored my buoyancy by lying motionless and blowing bubbles. Sinking to the bottom, I played dead. I counted the brown and white tiles. I learned to hold my breath. I created games, pretended I was a seal or a shark. Virtually I became a fish. I loved the water. Yet there was always resistance for me to go. It made my Dad gray to get me there.

When I turned 16, I became a lifeguard at the B.A.C. under the tutelage of Homer "Doc" Hughes. Doc had been my swim coach when I was a kid, so we were well acquainted. By any standard, Doc was an oddball, but I really liked him and trusted him. Doc was born old-a wizened farmer from Oklahoma, full of Indian stories. He limped on a withered leg. To this day I have no idea why they called him "Doc." He spoke so softly you'd have to lean toward him to hear anything he uttered. I remember his musty breath and saliva, the smell of his aging skin. I never heard him yell. There was a woundedness about Doc that reached back for generations. He gave lots of advice. One of his practices was to have me "crack" his back. It was a ritual. I can't count how many times he had me do it. He'd take off his glasses bring his elbows and forearms tightly together, palms over his face, like a Muslim in prayer. Then I'd pick him up with a bear hug from behind while thrusting my chest into his spine. Pop, pop, pop, crack, crack, and crack. Like breaking soda crackers, each now-happy vertebra sending a message of relief and joy to Doc's entire being. When I put him down he'd turn his head and look quizzically, like a German Shepard honing in on a distant sound. He was mentally assessing each vertebra and asking himself, "Did he get them all?" After a deep breath and sigh he'd say, "Good," and wiggle his head and shoulders.

Doc always wore pressed white slacks, flip-flops, and a B.A.C. t-shirt. I never saw Doc in a bathing suit except on Saturday mornings when he taught "tiny tots." Waist deep in the shallow end, he revealed his aging and sagging body, looking the part of an old man in a black Speedo until suddenly he'd scoop up a kid and throw him, or tenderly persuade another crying child into the pool. Doc then was magic. Parents who couldn't get their kids near the water brought them to Doc. His method centered on having fun. Coming to swim class with Doc was always an enjoyable experience for everybody, even for a troubled and scared seven-year-old who had nearly drowned. Doc's philosophy: "You've got to make them love it." And he really meant it. Doc said, "We do what we love and find excuses not to do what we don't. Don't make it drudgery."

I've carried Doc's counsel with me through the years and it really works with writing. I write best (and swim best) when I don't make it drudgery. Writing is a time for me to greet myself and find out what I'm thinking and feeling. I write things down that otherwise would pass in fleeting thought without notice. Writing gives me a heads-up on what's really going on. I generally don't write fewer than three pages in the morning but that's just me. B.F. Skinner in a marvelous essay, "How to Discover What You Have to Say," cites the Roman dictum: Nulla dies sine linea-No day without a line. If you're not currently keeping a journal or notebook, this might be the best place to start. Make it fun.

I also remember how Doc treated the traumatized seven-year-old who had nearly drowned the previous summer in Lake Erie. It was now autumn and her mother said the little girl wouldn't go near anything bigger than a bowl of water or even take a bath. Doc nodded and told the mother that he would take it from there. He wrapped the little girl in towels and sat her in a chaise longue near the steam radiator. He didn't so much as attempt to get her to put her big toe in the water. He didn't look at her and went about his business. Occasionally she'd lose herself and glance toward the pool at other kids who were splashing, laughing and having fun, then sharply she'd look away.

This went on for weeks until one day for what seemed to me no reason she let the towel drop from her tiny shoulders and came toward the pool. She shivered and her teeth chattered. Doc cupped the heavily scented chlorinated water in his hands and put it on her feet and rubbed it on her back and shoulders.