The Bite in the Apple: A Memoir of My Life with Steve Jobs (19 page)

Before entering the inner sanctuary where the Karmapa sat, high-level monks worked with the four of us in an anterior room to show us how to conduct ourselves in the presence of a Karmapa. We were instructed to stand upright while holding our hands together in prayer over the tops of our heads. Next we were to bring our hands down to the level of our third eye, and then to our hearts. After that we were to stick our tongues out pointing downward toward our chins and force our eye-balls up into the top of our heads and bow. Each bow, and there were to be three of them, was a full body prostration on the floor before the station of this man. I was utterly embarrassed, but jumped in ready to do whatever it took to be in his presence.

We were led into the room and His Holiness sat watching us perform the dizzying routine until at last we lined up like Four Musketeers catching our breath for what would be next. From a Western perspective the following won’t necessarily make sense, but I will say it anyway. It is true that we were all four standing together, but it was also true that each of us was having a private audience with His Holiness. Brilliant and glittery-eyed cartwheels of light turned in his eyes, as he looked into our eyes, individually and simultaneously. From this I knew I was in the presence of a fully awakened, multidimensional human being. I felt vastly expanded and lit up under his gaze. I would later look at his picture hanging in a Palo Alto spiritual bookstore and feel the same thing.

The Karmapa asked questions through a translator and seemed to be laughing at us in the most marvelous way the whole time. Part of the deal of receiving a blessing from him was that he would give us each a Tibetan name. In the East, teachers and gurus often give you a god name. I had been given other names, Paravati and Sharda, by two different teachers, and this would be my third. I had not intended to collect sacred names for myself, it is just what happened. The Karmapa was about to receive his lunch so we were told to come back the next day for the naming. When we returned at the appointed hour we went through the round of bows and, once again, felt the exhilaration that we were all being seen individually, as if he had four heads and eight eyes. He had the monks reach into a hat and pull out slips of paper one at a time. Each name was typewritten in Tibetan script and read aloud, then handed to the translator, who explained the meanings in English and then handed it to each of us. I do not remember my Tibetan name but I do remember its translation: “The Guardian of the Gate.” The Karmapa encouraged us to ask questions, and after a short Q and A, we were sent on our way out into the super-crowded, sun-blasted, noisy streets of downtown New Delhi.

I had gone to India because I wanted to be touched and changed by something as huge as the force that had touched and changed Steve. Seeing the Karmapa lit a fire in me that can hardly be overstated. The name that he gave me was a very powerful riddle that would take more than thirty years for me to understand.

Steve would later criticize me by saying that my trip to India was more of a vacation than a pilgrimage. But he missed it entirely. And only now after so much time has passed, and I have the depth of insight that a lot of work and a long life have afforded me, I am completely certain that India could never be a “vacation” for anyone who was there for over three weeks—it is too profound a place. That Steve couldn’t or wouldn’t see this, that he couldn’t allow me to have my own sacred experience without his distorting interpretations, is something that took me way too long to understand.

Before I left to go on my trip to India, the Zen teacher, Kobun, had told me, “If you feel like coming home, first wait two weeks and then if you still feel like coming home,
come home!”
I had been in India for a year when I finally knew I was done. I also knew that my relationship with Greg was over. Our approach to living was so different that we were a constant aggravation to one another. It did not seem like a life partnership would be possible, and so I returned to the United States by myself.

TWELVE

PURE FUNCTION

The afternoon I flew into Oakland airport from Hong Kong, I had to take public transportation across the bay because my family was confused by the dateline and thought I was arriving the next day. The doors were locked when I got to the house in Saratoga and no one would be around for hours. With little else to do, I sat outside and waited. It felt odd to be back in the grand materialism of California. Our neighborhood, with its empty streets and perfect lawns, seemed sterile after India. It was a mind-blowing contrast.

By evening, however, my family had returned and I had the most wonderful time regaling my younger sisters and my father and his wife with stories of the year’s amazements. I had been a stranger in a strange land far too long and it was so good to be home. Home, where people knew me and I knew them. The next day I called Steve, who, at this point, was simply my friend. We met for dinner later that evening and ended up at his parents’ house, where he was living at the time. Paul and Clara were watching TV when we walked in. We said hello and went into Steve’s bedroom, where we sat on the floor and had a glass of port. I told Steve about my trip, and I remember that we talked about Deuteronomy that night, because I had read some contemporary essays about it on the flight home that had lit new concepts in my mind. I’d found Deuteronomy a mysterious and ugly word before reading about it, but afterward I was thrilled by the way it tumbled out of my mouth. I think this represented a new me to Steve.

I had intended to go home that night, but Steve made a bed on the floor for us and we made love. It was two o’clock in the morning when Clara knocked on his door. “Is everything alright?” she asked. I was paralyzed with fear thinking that she would walk in and find me there, but the voice that emerged from Steve repatterned the very air with its blend of soft confident power. “I have been on a long, long journey,” he told her. He was looking at me but angling his voice toward the door. “Okay,” Clara said. She didn’t need to know more and so returned to bed. This call-and-response between mother and son was truth and it was beauty, and he had protected our space with it. This was a new Steve for me.

Steve was haunted his whole life by the nature of his relationship with his parents but more than that, it was the nature of the life he had grown up in. I think he wondered if he was even in the right life. He made a lot of jokes about there being
a big mistake,
and something about
a case of mistaken identity
. It was one of his shticks. It was so charming to see him fall into this act because he was just so honest and funny about the loss. At bottom though, I think it showed that he worried constantly that something had been damaged or irrevocably lost due to the bungling at the time of the adoption, or perhaps because of the adoption itself.

QUESTION
: What does a
person d
o about something that was lost in the past?

ANSWER
: Worry about how that loss might translate into losses in the future.

It’s my feeling that these issues were coming to a head for Steve just as I had returned from India. I felt he looked to those around him to weigh in on his questions in a deeply sincere way.
Had something been lost?
Turning to others to give value to something in myself is not what I’m inclined to do, at least not in the same way. I’ve never felt that kind of trust. Yet, it’s a tender and honest trait that I’ve observed not just in Steve, but in our daughter, Lisa, and in Steve’s sister, Mona. Perhaps it’s an innate quality carried in their ancient Syrian DNA, connected to the importance of group consensus; it’s a characteristic that is completely open and vulnerable and looks to the group to ask, “Can you see, am I worthy?” Sometimes this quality strikes me as too dependent upon the opinions of others, while at other times it appears to me as the most remarkable wisdom. Steve usually radiated the sense of his being more precious and important than anyone in the world. But at that time he was looking outward for evaluation and his concerns touched my heart.

Though I don’t remember any distinct conversations (except a bit of one with Robert Friedland), I do recall the sense of mounting consensus that seemed to lay down the necessary level of confidence in order for Steve to move into his destiny. I think that, prince that he was, Steve was looking to others to somehow move beyond his parents and reclaim his throne. It’s hard to say, but I do remember opening the Jobses’ screen door on a beautiful spring day and being struck with the feeling that not only were they okay for Steve, but maybe even perfect. In my mind, Paul, who was so practical and clear about the business of his days, and Clara, who was something of a giantess of good intention, were the right parents for Steve, or at least right enough. Perhaps they were what providence had arranged for. As I looked at their neutral sensibilities—the adamant no-frills quality of their lives, the blue-collar work ethic—I saw that all combined to provide the right endowment for what Steve needed for the man he would become.

*   *   *

I now believe that Kobun was behind everything. Eastern masters can remove a student’s karmic negativities so that he or she can progress with greater ease. It’s called the grace of the guru in India, and though I don’t know what this kind of knowledge is called in the Japanese tradition of enlightenment, I know it exists there, too. Kobun had many capacities as a spiritual teacher. He was skilled at unifying perceptions between groups of people, and at opening doors to allow for greater access. But was it the place of a spiritual teacher to remove a person’s karmic obstacles in order to engage in a business enterprise? Could it have been that Kobun was so inspired by Steve’s genius that he stepped out of his spiritual integrity to give the lad a leg up? Was Kobun a spiritual materialist? Maybe he was flipping switches behind his curtain without really understanding the implications. Members of the Zen community said many times that Kobun never abused his power. That made me uneasy, because people often repeat things when the opposite is true. Kobun was extraordinary and he was also beloved. But he was decidedly tricky.

The great value of developing through difficulty, whether you think in terms of karma or psychology, is that it humanizes people. Being human is about the challenge of surmounting obstacles. Too much grace and we don’t really understand what things mean, and we can lose our way. Too much hardship and we never find our way. It’s a fine line to walk: while we want to succeed, the road that gets us there must be just bumpy enough to allow an appreciation for the effort made. That, in turn, allows compassion to flower and bear fruit. Was Kobun wise enough to have found the right balance for Steve?

Compassion might not be valued highly enough today. Our elaborate systems of business and politics consider humanity to be less important than the bottom line. Long ago in 1976, Kobun gave Steve something—many things—that were good. But I also felt there was a kind of nudge-nudge wink-wink complicity between them. It seems to me that Kobun lifted Steve up, and in so doing, helped Steve avoid some bumps he would have done well to encounter. And maybe it is in this way that Steve lost some human breadth along the way.

*   *   *

Steve and I fell in love again. And one day that spring he bowed his head and told me that he knew we would fall in love months before I had returned from my trip. It was a profound admission, said with life-altering honesty. We were older now, diving deeper and redefining. This was our next step and it indicated larger responsibilities, which we both yearned for. Steve was open and in love with me, and sometimes at the end of his day when I walked into his office, I could feel and see the bright true colors of love come over him when he saw me. Steve’s reception of me was profound and that drew me closer. Our kisses were deeper and our lovemaking was of a different order. We were growing up and the stakes were higher. Steve and I had both changed.

I was around to see how all of Steve’s changes were affecting his parents, too. They were so proud of him, but they were also hurt that Kobun had such influence in their son’s life. Though I don’t think there were flare-ups or that anyone said anything directly, at least when I was around, I knew they were sad and angered because I watched their expressions. Steve had taken the greatest care to thank his parents with the garden, and many other considerations—yet they seemed awkwardly displaced in their own home once the Zen master had taken over the inner sanctuary level of Steve’s education. In Eastern cultures, this transition—that of such a teacher choosing Steve as his student—would have been cause for the greatest possible pride and joy. Though poignant, it would have been the mark of all success and distinction. But Paul and Clara didn’t have this frame of reference, and I saw Steve walking very carefully around their pain. They thought they were being replaced—and in a sense they were.

*   *   *

One night when I was waiting for Steve to come home from work, I sat down to watch TV with Paul and Clara. TV was an important part of the Jobs household. They worked hard and had a wholesome tiredness that hung on mind and body, and this is how they relaxed and closed their days. Clara would sit on the La-Z-Boy chair, feet up, and slowly move the ball of her right foot back and forth for hours, as if keeping time for her family.

The Jobses’ living room was something of a terminal for me, a way station between events. But I have come to appreciate that it was also the stage on which many important changes would be flagged. On this night, as I waited in what could be considered the most social time I’d ever had with Paul and Clara, the lights were low and the TV was blasting. It was dark outside and the blue screen took over the room with its aggressive noise. When Steve walked in, Clara turned off the TV, leaving the room painfully lit by a lamp’s single bulb, but blessedly quiet.

Steve was carrying the first prototype of computer casing to show his parents. I watched as they oooh-ed and ahhh-ed over it, the whites of their eyes shining in the dim light. Steve stood at the end of the couch, tall and impressive, turning the hard plastic shell between his hands. That evening it seemed like Paul and Clara were the children, and Steve the proud parent. He was happy with the design and told us that the Italian company Apple had originally hired had come up with a literal head shape for the TV screen. A head for a computer screen! Steve shut his eyes and shuddered.