hen Norma Lundholm Djerassi was growing up in Lynnfield, Massachusetts, she loved books and enjoyed writing thank-you notes for gifts -- especially for her favorite presents, books.
Her passion for books and expressing her thoughts in writing has evolved over the years to sharing her life story in a collection of letters written to family members and friends -- important people in her life who are no longer living. Published last fall in a book, "Heart Notes," the letters reflect on people, memories and events and, more significantly, record personal history that molds a person's inner life.
"People kept after me to write the story of my life, but I resisted, insisting the past had indeed passed, and I was too busy living in the present," says Norma, now 82, during an interview in the contemporary Portola Valley home she has lived in for the past 40 years. Walking into the living area, one notices the paintings, sculpture, pottery and weaving that add color, form and memories.
In 1959, she and her former husband, Dr. Carl Djerassi, found the view lot in Westridge, chose an architect and hired a Scandinavian construction firm to build the home while they were living in Mexico City in anticipation of relocating near Stanford. Dr. Djerassi, widely known as "the father of the birth-control pill," is the father of their two children, Pamela and Dale Djerassi.
During a conversation, her son came up with the idea that she use the letter form to tell her story. "You write letters all the time, why don't you use letters as a medium to tell your story?" suggested Dale, a filmmaker who lives west of Skyline, near the site of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program founded by his father.
"Dale's suggestion must have simmered in my mind," she recalls. One day, she came home after doing errands, sat down at her typewriter, and wrote a letter, "Dearest Pami," to her daughter, an artist who took her own life in 1978 at the age of 28.
"It just flowed," says Norma about the first and most poignant letter in her book. It concludes: "I feel most fortunate to have had you as a daughter and friend for 28 years. I shall never stop loving you -- even wishing you were still here in physical body as well as spirit. But it has been your spirit that has told me to move on with life."
Then she wrote a letter to her mother, "a good maverick role for me. You were decades ahead of your time as a single parent. As you watched me throughout your life you probably recognized that I was seldom in the mainstream so much as swimming against the current. I still am."
Her next letter was written to her father, whom she never knew. She has "questions and questions and no answers." She reflects: "I had an inner yearning for a father, a void which no one else could ever fill. I am amazed how long the pain of an absent father has been tucked tightly inside me and hidden from my conscious awareness."
Norma continued writing letters to her maternal grandparents, Nana and Grampa, and her paternal Swedish Grandma and Grandpa Lundholm, and then a number of friends who meant a lot to her. When she wrote the final letter, she decided, "That's the last one."
She concludes in the postscript to "Heart Notes": "So there you have us -- a few of my relatives and friends and me -- with our faults, flaws, strengths and weaknesses. We are each distinctly different from one another but definitely connected."
With her manuscript professionally retyped, Norma invited the first friend she met in Portola Valley, teacher Robin Toews, to her home one afternoon to listen to her read the letters. "An honest appraisal of self and memory, compassionate and forgiving" is how Robin describes the book in notes on the book jacket. "For what are we," she continues, "but pieces of memory floating in the minds of those we have touched?"
In her book, Norma allows readers to participate in events since her birth that have marked her and formed her strong opinions of justice and truth, writes Robin, concluding with a quote from the author: "Life for all its tragedies can still have heartwarming surprises."
One of the great pleasures in Norma's life, she says, is the close relationship she has with her son, whom she describes as "a real father to his son," Alexander Djerassi. Her grandson, now 16 and a high school junior, was intrigued with the words "a mingle-mangle" that Norma chose and retained as a subtitle for "Heart Notes." Mingle-mangle, according to the Webster's dictionary, is a confused mixture or medley, a hodgepodge.
After literary agent Sally Conley, owner of the former Guild Book Store in Menlo Park and back from a stint with the Peace Corps in American Samoa, read the manuscript, she said, "This needs to be published." She sent it to John Daniel of Fithian Press, a division of Daniel and Daniel Publishers in Santa Barbara.
Much earlier, Mr. Daniel, who had worked at Kepler's, approached Norma out of the blue, offering to publish a small volume of Pamela Djerassi's poetry, "Mother to Myself," that Norma had compiled. "I really think publishing the poems launched him on his publishing career," she says, "a wonderful connection that makes me realize we are all connected."
Books are still "an important part of my life," says Norma. A voracious reader, she often reads two different types of books at the same time. On a table near her front door is "Elegy for Iris," written by the late novelist Iris Murdoch's husband, John Bayley. She's also reading "Before Night Falls" by Cuban exile Reinaldo Arenas.
Norma has written two other books, "Glimpses of China from a Galloping Horse," published in 1974, and a collection of poetry, "The Gentle Cry," in 1971. Her poems have been published in several reviews and anthologies.
The first in her family to go to college, Norma graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a bachelor of arts degree, and received her master of arts degree from Boston University. Before she married, she taught English in high school.
After her divorce in 1976, she returned to teaching, this time at Canada Community College, helping Latino students in English as a Second Language classes. She speaks Spanish, Italian and Japanese fluently.
"I feel I've been very fortunate with the amount of traveling I've done," says Norma. She credits her former husband for introducing her to the world. "Carl said Americans don't have any feeling for geography," she recalls.
After her divorce, Norma decided to go to the "rooftop of the world," traveling to Nepal, Burma and Korea, where she joined a team researching Buddhist temples.
When a friend asked what she learned from the trip, she replied, "I discovered I could travel on my own."
She has made several trips to Italy to learn the language and absorb the culture. Returning in 1984, she studied for three months at the National University for Foreigners in Perugia, focusing on Italian language, culture and history.
Of all the places Norma has traveled, she says she would love to go back to East Africa, "one of the most exciting places to see -- there's something primordial about it." She experienced a similar feeling on seeing the glaciers in Alaska.
Life also has brought some unexpected events. In early 1991, Norma had quadruple bypass heart surgery, followed by coronary arrest a few days into recovery. "But I didn't leave. I now feel young in spirit, although my body periodically reminds me of its age."
Norma describes her life now "as not very complicated." She takes yoga instruction on Mondays and Fridays. On Tuesday mornings, she studies collage, "now called assemblage," with painter Katie O'Leary at the Palo Alto Art Center. After finishing her book, Norma is taking a "Life Stories" writing class with Sheila Dunec, sponsored by Foothill Community College and held Thursday mornings downstairs in the Menlo Park Library.
Once a month, a group of friends meets at Norma's for "Poetry Potluck." Everybody brings a poem to read and some food to share. Among the members are Robin Toews, Kate Williams Browne and Clair Jernick of Portola Valley.
"Life is indeed an educational experience," sums up Norma. "All my life I have been a student and a seeker. Of what? I seem to be curious about everything, and that keeps me still on a search in my eighth decade."
"Heart Notes," by Norma Lundholm Djerassi and published by Fithian Press, is available for $15 at Kepler's bookstore in Menlo Park and other area bookstores.
Poem by Norma Lundholm Djerassi
Seeking a Center
Just when I think I'm nearing
center once more, a wave of grief
sweeps over me, knocking me
into the sand on which my feet rested.
I recover my balance
to stand in quiet waters
again, for awhile,
trying to find you --
and myself --
aware now that the sea
in which I flounder
is much less quiet
here at its surface.
How deep must I go
before I reach the calm
at the center?
Will you be there
and in the silent, dark depths,
Truth?
Norma Lundholm Djerassi
April 1979
