Bionic Birthday

Plus, prepare for Carol's show, already

Friends!

The latest episode of The Process, the interview with Carol Schweigert, is delayed by Gallery show preproduction needs. No worries, you can get to the opening reception of her show on March 6th at Blanchard Gallery, 172 Water Street, Hallowell, Maine 04347. Just think of how ready you’ll be to dive into our interview afterwards.

In the meantime, in another episode of the Serial Box, I share the first part of my report from the field. The snowy, snowy field.

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Top Secret

Clearance authorization: Level 6

Subject: Cate Gallivan

Age: birthday age

Past Profession: piano tuner

Current Profession: writer

Present Residence: a 2-ft snowbank in close proximity to Boston, MA

Marisa called to say she had a birthday present for me that was something I didn’t already own, would never own, and was, in fact, an experience that I had never had before.

“Intrigued?” She asked.

More like worried. I didn’t put it past her to arrange for something to jump out of a cake or for a brass band to oom-pah-pah down my street.

Soon that worry would shift, but I didn’t know that yet.

File released from the Office of Scientific Intelligence:

Who is Lindsay Wagner?

76 yrs old actor, born in L.A.

Mother of 2 boys

Star of all 3 seasons of The Bionic Woman from 1976-78

Won an Emmy in 1977

What is the Bionic Woman?

Sci-fi action/adventure series based on the 1972 novel Cyborg by Martin Caidin, a spin-off of The Six Million Dollar Man

Who is the Bionic Woman?

Jaime Sommers. Formerly a professional tennis player, she is critically injured during a skydiving accident. Jaime’s life is saved with bionic surgical implants: an amplified bionic right ear, a bionic right arm, and two bionic legs that enable her to jump great distances and run over 60 miles per hour. She takes on special, secret, high-risk government missions as an occasional agent of the Office of Scientific Intelligence, all while teaching middle and high school students in her regular life.

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Marisa called a week before my birthday.

“Ok, I have bought you a 2-minute conversation with Lindsay Wagner, The Bionic Woman. She’ll call you at 12:06pm on Sunday!”

Speechless doesn’t begin to cover it. My mind was “Ravine” by Van Gogh, an endless swirl of thoughts and impressions, colors and questions that had no answers, no place to rest. Or Process, for that matter.

Did I thank her? I have to hope I fell back on the reflexes of social custom.

Honestly, it didn’t make sense. Why would the Bionic Woman call me? Why would I answer?

Office of Scientific Intelligence Mission Log:

T-7 Days: Subject is confused, thoughts muddled

T-5 Days: conversation overheard in Subject’s kitchen:

“Well, I mean, you watched the show as a kid, right?”

“Of course! I remember loving it. We used to play Bionic Woman and make that special effect noise whenever we were doing something bionic.”

“Yeah, me too, what was her name on the show? Jay—”

“Jaime Somers,” I snapped.

[Where did that come from? How on Earth did I remember the name of a TV character from a show I hadn’t seen in 50 years? And just like that, this sleeper agent had been activated back into her former bionic life.]

T-4 Days: Awakened by the code words “Jaime Somers,” Sleeper Agent is now on the mission.

[Do I enjoy talking on the telephone? I do not. Did I want to talk to a stranger on the telephone on my birthday? I did not. But, on the other hand, I could not pass up this opportunity to gather intel.]

T-3 Days: Sleeper Agent’s personal worry has been transferred completely to Lindsay Wagner. Is she ok? Does she need help? Extraction of any kind? She shares concerns with Mission Control.

T-2 Days: Work, worry, dishes, errands, laundry.

T-1 Days: Mission Control reports Lindsay Wagner is fine. She’s doing this because it’s the 50th anniversary of the show, it’s a promotion thing, but one for which she doesn’t have to travel around. She is, after all, an elder Bionic. Email confirmation and details of the rendezvous forwarded to Sleeper Agent. Fears quelled, questions for Lindsay Wagner, Bionic Woman, compiled, written out, ready.

D-Day: Not the telephone, a Zoom meet. At 11:56am, 10 minutes before the 2-minute scheduled Zoom call with Lindsay Wagner, The Bionic Woman, Sleeper Agent double clicks, as requested, on the Zoom link.

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The Office of Scientific Intelligence connection is instant. I’m ushered into a waiting room.

12:05pm: I’m in the waiting room, a cyber waiting room, about to collect intel over a secured line. Onscreen, I stare at myself on camera. Did I ever imagine I would be talking Lindsay Wagner, The Bionic Woman, on my birthday? I did not. I never imagined life much beyond 15 or so. I wondered more about landing my flying car, and if I’d be able to fly it on my own with just a permit. But that was for when I was 16, way into the swirling mists of the future.

12:06pm: yep, still in the waiting room. It’s starting to feel more like a tele-health visit with my PCP than this operative’s clandestine meet-up with The Bionic Woman.

12:07: …

12:08: Maybe this is actually a practical joke cooked up by my PCP and Marisa. I hadn’t considered that before…I didn’t think my PCP had a sense of humor, but Marisa, on the other hand, does love a good practical joke…

12:09: The screen swirls!

Lindsay Wagner, The Bionic Woman, appears. She’s sitting at a desk in soft focus, a silk scarf fashionably tied at her neck.

“Hi…Cate,” Lindsay Wagner, The Bionic Woman says, “Happy Anniversary.”

It’s not my anniversary.

Knowing that The Office of Scientific Intelligence would never jeopardize their bionic asset in the field through faulty intel, I decide that this must be how people in L.A. wish each other happy birthday.

“Thanks!”

Redacted from the conversation:

“So, I’m a writer, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“I want to know if there was ever a time, after the show was over—when you were back to your own life—when you yourself felt bionic.”

“I mostly just felt exhausted. It was a lot of work doing that show!”

“No, no, I don’t mean in general, I mean just for a moment. For me, every once in a while, I have a day where everything is going right, whatever I touch works and everything is easy. I feel like I have superhuman powers on those days, that’s what I’m talking about. Did you ever have a moment where you had that feeling and thought, oh, this is what it’s like to be bionic?”

“Oh, oh, that I can answer! Let me see, no one’s ever asked me this before. I do have a memory…ok, I was very, very pregnant with my second child, and I had gone shopping and was pulling into the apartment complex where we lived. I have to describe the apartment. It had these beautiful sort of double-casement windows that opened out onto the parking lot. There was a flowerbed just under the window filled with flowers in bloom, and then the parking lot. My son had fallen asleep (finally!) on the drive home, so I left him in his car seat while I brought the groceries upstairs. I was just going to drop the groceries and then go bring him up in the car seat, but when I looked out the window, the car was smoking! So I jumped from these windows down to the ground, you have to picture how very, very pregnant I was and wobbly because of that, but I didn’t even think, I just jumped and ran to the car to get him!”

“That’s amazing! Was your son—”

“OK, that’s all the time we have,” said a disembodied Zoom-y voice, “Lindsay needs to go now.”

“Right, well thank you very mu—”

The connection is broken.

The Zoom experience ended as it had started: with me staring at myself on the screen.

Except now, I’ve had an experience that I never had before.

The experience is still unfolding…