The Rescuer’s Path
I was 27 when I became pregnant, while seeking to open myself up to new people and new ways of life and love, and to stop the war in Viet Nam, during the late-1960s antiwar movement in Berkeley, California. I was working for an “underground” newspaper, covering the “peace beat” so my skills might be of use to saving lives, when a brave, flamboyant, handsome, and utterly committed activist came in one evening with a story of an “action” he was doing, and I let myself throw off all barriers and took him, for our brief time, to my heart. The “rabbit test” came back positive on the same day “our” country first bombed Hanoi and Haiphong. This was a time of massacre and war—yet also, in this country, in our Movement this was, as well, a time of hope and change. And, among us, there was no shame to being pregnant—to the contrary—though there was fear, of course, to be pregnant and alone. I came to great new self-esteem in recognition of my love for others, in this time, and the loves and hope...