Friday 1st May. Cousin James is studying medicine at the University of Virginia. At his apartment he has some books on consciousness and the brain, some I've read, some I haven't. We talk about neurology a bit. We talk about Bill Murray's character in Wes Anderson's film The Royal Tennenbaums, the bearded neurologist who spends his time developing his diagnosis of a boy who with a collection of mild and apparently random difficulties (being colour-blind, being unable to complete block-puzzles etc.). In the film, Murray's character (based, surely, on famous neurologist Oliver Sacks) continually refines his investigation, searching for new ways to test his subject, but never offers anything in the way of advice, treatment, or reaction of any kind save to comment, with a flush of excitement, at each new discovery, 'How interesting, how bizarre!' 'That's what I'm starting to understand about neurology,' says James, 'the cases are interesting, they're fascinating, but there's damn all you can do about it.'
They are re-bricking Main Street. It's a topic that crops up a few times. Oliver tells me it's costing $7million. A lot of people are upset about the expense. I spend the afternoon at the Main Street Clubhouse. I meet Leigh Wion, the director, and some of the members. Leigh says the re-bricking has been a hard time for the Clubhouse but the new bricks are better. The old ones got loose and members used to trip over. It turns out Leigh knows my uncle Tom. He was her allergist. He works at the University of Virginia. She says she earned good money participating in his research programme. A girl called Anna shows me around and we talk for a while about how and why she comes to the Clubhouse. I learn that Anna is a brown belt in Tai Kwan Do. She can break cedar wood boards with her hands and her feet. She is also good at singing and learning music. She tells me she doesn't like crowds. If there's a crowd she puts on her sunglasses, even indoors, because it helps her concentrate and keep going in a straight line.
Leigh says the Clubhouse has only a few criteria. 'You have to want to be here. You can't be a threat to the Clubhouse.' She says how sometimes higher functioning members take a while to come round, to work out that it's not all about them, that everyone has a contribution to make, that everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. She says sometimes when a person has been more recently injured they may not be ready to come to the Clubhouse - it can take time for them to know what they need, and what they want. She says in her experience the hospital system can condition people not to take decisions, to rely on other people to organise them and take responsibility for their planning. The point of the Clubhouse is to help people stop being patients, start being people again. I say to them, 'It's your life.'
Leigh has booked me in to spend Monday and Tuesday with them. I'll team up with Anna and see what the day is like. Leigh also says she can put me in touch with Harvey Jacobs, a key figure in the Clubhouse movement, based in Richmond, a couple of hours to the East.
I have no idea what this bird is.
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