Patchwork Intimacy
When I was a college student, I worked at the Center for Research in Social Behavior on the University of Missouri campus. I needed a work-study job. They needed someone to do some clerical work. I would work with a social gerontologist. I was planning to go to grad school in sociology. I was interested in gerontology. This was perfect. I applied. They accepted me. I loved it. They were some of the first people who took me seriously and thought I had potential. I was single welfare mother with three small children trying to “make something” of myself. Single mothers were more of a rarity then. Most people saw me as “low-life.” The doctoral student working for the social gerontologist was my “boss.” She had an apartment somewhere but usually slept on the floor in her office in the old Tudor-style building on Stewart Road. She had a hot plate surrounded by cans of beans and spaghetti-o's and lots of peanut butter. I often wondered if she really did have an apartment. She was...