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Allen Lawrence, M.D.
My Many Lives
Part III
On the Beach, A New Life and Feeling Better
After arriving in Maui we rented a condo, unpacked and on the following Monday, I started at Kehei Physicians Medical Clinic. We had placed virtually everything we owned in storage so we were traveling light living in a furnished condo. It was like vacationing and getting paid for it. My atrial fibrillation eventually returned but it never reached anywhere near to level of problem I experienced in Los Angeles. There seemed to be a message in this but at that point in my life I was not ready to hear it yet, so it passed over me. I chalked up my improvement to less stress and living in the warm, moist air of the tropics.
Maui was good for me. I had once again reduced my workload and I was living in paradise. Everything was new and life was good. I had plenty of time off and lots of time to think. In 1977, I had started writing. I had started writing on what was initially to be a lecture to the California School of Psychology were I lectured several times a year on Human Sexuality. I had attended programs at the Masters and Johnson Institute in St. Louis and courses at the National Sex Form these along with my background in OB/Gyn gave me a unique insight into human sexuality. For several years I lectured on what could be referred to as the “nuts and bolts” of sexuality. Anatomy, physiology and pathology. In 1977, I was asked to speak to the senior class on sexuality however, most all of these students had already heard my “nuts and bolts” lectures. It was suggested that I talk more about the human aspects of sex. To do this I sat down and wrote fifty to sixty pages of what soon became known as “The Mating Dance, If It Works It’s Love, If It Doesn’t, It Is Disaster.” (This book ended up being more than 750 pages long and it is still has not been published.) This was about how sexuality fit into relationships, how relationships led to sex and how sex led to relationship and how sexual relationships were formed.
Over the years, since I first started writing or this lecture, my interest in this topic steadily grown, I researched and studied, wrote and rewrote my thoughts, it was initially a laborious task. This is mostly because I did not type. I would have to write my thoughts out in long hand, give them to one of my secretaries to type, edit the typed notes, write more in long hand, give my notes back to be retyped and so on. This was time consuming, laborious and costly. Now, once in Hawaii, I no longer had a secretary, so I decided to buy a computer. In 1984, the Apple II Computer had just come out and while by today’s standard it was quite primitive, at that time it was the most sophisticated machine available to me. Truly, it changed my life for once I learned to type it freed me to write, edit and reedit all by myself, at my pace and when I wanted to do it. With more free time, I was able to write as often and as much I as I wanted. I became a writer. Not a good one, but still a writer.
During that following year I began to look inward. I recognized eventually why I had been depressed in the late 1970's. First, even though I had never lost a patient and I thought almost constantly about death. Next, I was unhappy with the practice of medicine and did not know why. The answers were to come and they would not only surprise me, but once again change the substance and direction of my life.
©Allco Publishing, 2006
