the blue silk sutures were formed somehow, perhaps inexplicably, in 1963--a year neither of us can remember—when ‘the bell jar’ was first published in london and little peggy march topped the american pop charts with the hit ‘i will follow him’. american psychiatrists were still using the freud-inspired first edition of the DSM, with its 60 defined mental disorders (paltry compared to todays fourth edition and its 300+ disorders) and jackie o. wore pink. it was 28 years after the suicide of charlotte perkins gilman and 2 years before the supreme court overturned the comstock laws that banned contraception. maybe it could have happened any time, but that was when circumstances brought us together.

were we nurses or patients?

i wish i could remember but it doesn’t matter now. we left that hospital and started playing music a year later. 1964: Joanne Greenberg’s mental institution classic, 'i never promised you a rose garden', hit the bookstands and the dixie cups “chapel of love” stormed the charts, underlining every american girls romantic dream of true commitment, whatever the circumstances...