New York State Route 231 by dougtone via Flickr

There’s a parade coming down the main drag that connects the hamlet where I live to the village by the bay. Down here in the village, the main drag has long since dwindled to one lane in each direction. This morning, it’s brisk with traffic, each vehicle racing to avoid getting caught behind the barricade that’s going up at any moment.

We need to be on the other side. My practiced eye looks briefly in either direction, assessing the traffic for relative distance and speed. This is going to be cake. Taking off at a sprint, I easily cover the two lanes well before the oncoming traffic arrives. I look around. I see my two friends still huddled where I’d left them on the curb at the other side, faces drawn taught with thinly-disguised anxiety. Finally, they feel it’s safe, and they hurry across.

“OMG, I thought you’d be killed!” one of them exclaims.

“What?” comes my bewildered response. “There was plenty of time. Don’t you people know how to cross a street?”

I’d grown up in the city, where you take your crossing opportunities as they come, even on wide boulevards of four and six lanes of heavy, New York driver traffic. If you aren’t bold, then you’re destined to stand a good, long time waiting to cross at that uncontrolled intersection. Waiting, wating… who has time for that?

NYC Street by T. Ruette via Flickr

It’s a few years later, and I am on my way to see a friend perform in concert with his quartet. I am traveling from Long Island with the only other person I’m aware of who also has a ticket, but I don’t know him terribly well. He’s funny and nice company for the mass transit journey into the city. His eyes are fringed with those impossibly long guy-lashes that make every woman sigh and wonder, “Why can’t *I* have lashes like that?”

(A few years into the future, I would focus on those lashes while standing under the chupah, having random thoughts about anything and everything, just to keep myself from thinking about the reason we were standing there…)

Sweet by Maureen Lunn via Flickr

He pulls the cord overhead to signal the driver. We de-bus near Lincoln Center and prepare to cross Broadway. My practiced eye looks briefly in either direction… my muscles are tensing in preparation for the sprint. Although we are not physically touching, I feel him hesitate beside me, drawn taught… Before he has a chance to balk, I grab his hand and give it an encouraging tug. We have ignition, we have liftoff, running hand in hand until we reach the opposite curb. His hand immediately releases mine, but for a while after, I can still feel the shape and the weight of it in mine. How odd…

Otters holding hands by mindluge via Flickr

This had happened to me only one other time, the very first time I’d ever held hands with a boy. He was funny and his eyes were an impossible shade of blue; not even a color found in nature, I don’t think, and certainly not one I’d ever seen before or since. The first time our hands touched (accidentally-on-purpose), I’d gone directly for the interlaced fingers position, but he was having none of that and quickly shifted us instead to the palm-to-palm position. I was satisfied, pleased that he hadn’t rejected the idea of hand-holding altogether, but at random times for days after, I would suddenly experience the pleasantly terrifying sensation of his fingers filling the spaces between mine.

A moment of many by sarahpetherbridge via Flickr

I wanted to be pleasantly terrified. I wanted to be gifted with the experience of someone filling in all the places where I am blank. I’m not sure how, but somewhere along the way “pleasantly” and “terrified” became uncoupled; unchecked, terror fills the blank spaces with something that’s drawn taught, something that drives me to flinch from the sprint, to wait at the corner until the signal changes.

Oh, for my days of the practiced eye, the ability to assess, the exhilarated sprint, fully confident that I would reach the curb unscathed. Oh, for the days!

Now playing – The Fray: Never Say Never

© 2010, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

©2010 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. My “cougar” days, part one
2. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 1 of 7

I have come to the conclusion that I am a Renaissance juggler.

“Renaissance man” is a phrase coined to describe someone who has a depth of knowledge spanning a diverse range of interests. A juggler is someone who has many balls in the air at the same time. I am someone with a diverse set of passions who can and does indulge in several of them simultaneously. I’ve never felt an overwhelming, life-long pull toward any one of these interests for very long. Interests come and go only to return again years later, borne back to me on some unseen tide. At intervals during my life, I’ve had keen, intense interest in writing, performing, photography, organic gardening, Disney, sea shells, psychology and all manner of IT geekery. That last interest currently manifests itself via a fascination with consumer electronics and social media.

Photo by Helico

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© 2010, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

©2010 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

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1. What am I good at? Survey says… part 1

“Here’s what all of you have done. You’ve made a sad situation joyous and inspirational. So, to all the people watching, I can never, ever thank you enough for the kindness to me. I’ll think about it for the rest of my life.

Conan O’Brien
The Tonight Show
22 January 2010

This is the way “Coco” departed from The Tonight Show – choked up, humble, vulnerable and a class act all the way. I very much appreciated his final farewell, but I must admit that at the same time, I was baffled and slightly annoyed at the admonishment to “don’t be cynical”. Baffled, because I wasn’t quite sure where that came from, and annoyed because I’d had my run-ins with the word before.

There were a few years during my tenure at the firm when the IT organization (barely) survived a failed outsourcing agreement. More than half of the IT professionals in the firm were outsourced but continued in their positions, while the rest of us “managed” to the terms of the agreement. Almost immediately, 20% of those outsourced were cut by their new employer, but in typical fashion, no one bothered to cut 20% of the work. The agreement was supposed to span Y years for $X billion dollars. It soon became obvious that this was a clash of the titans and a failure of epic proportions. Their marching orders were to do as little as possible for $X billion dollars over Y years and bill us for the balance. Our marching orders were to “manage” them into doing as MUCH as possible for $X billion dollars over Y years and never let them bill us a penny extra. Battle lines were drawn. Long-standing workplace relationships strained and sometimes fell apart. Some good talent left us simply because they felt neglected, cast out and betrayed.

Competition for the internal positions was fierce, and a forced ranking methodology was introduced, accompanied by “360 degree reviews”. This meant you could review each other according to a prescribed format. One of the questions in the 360 review was, “On a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being Not At All and 5 being All The Time – how cynical is SoAndSo?”. I ask you – what the HELL does cynicism have to do with my ability to execute? If I’m hitting all my targets and delivering what I said I’d deliver and then some, why should anyone care if I’m intelligent enough to see the way things are and call them as I see them?

I refused to participate in the process. Among my colleagues, I am famous for a few pithy little sayings, but one of the most famous is, “Don’t ever give me a free form text box. Ever.” The 360 review format had free-form text boxes, and I wrote in them – yes all of them – that 360 degree reviews amounted to permission to assassinate one another and I refused to participate. I also told them what I thought of their little outsourcing agreement. I must not have been alone. A few other little insurrections were about to occur. I’ll only tell you about the most famous one.

At the end of two years, a committee from both sides got together to develop a presentation for executive management, all about issues and outcomes and accomplishments and all that stuff. By unanimous consensus, they had the balls to leave the “Accomplishments” slide completely and utterly blank. Management got the message. 360 degree reviews were discontinued, and the outsourcing agreement was dissolved. Everyone was brought back into the firm and given their old titles back without interruption in years of service.

Although executive management eventually acknowledged and corrected their mistakes, there was some serious damage done. We did lose talent, and we did lose cohesiveness. Many fell prey to burnout. Some folks had actually been thriving at the outsourced company. Loyalties had been completely transferred, and these people were really pissed off to be brought back over to the place that had robbed them of their control over their own careers, dumping them unceremoniously. And the final point of impact? The definition of “cynical” had been warped and twisted and used as a weapon, an aversive stimulus. Recognizing and telling an unpleasant truth was bad, it was wrong, it was “cynical”.

It’s difficult to refrain from sinking into the cynical abyss when life gives you so much good material for it. Wretched realities often overshadow their counterparts in this world. The current state of the world economy serves as a prime example. Bad choices made by greedy, bottom line-driven entities for whom the word “enough” has no meaning have resulted in crisis, recession, off-shoring and layoffs, joblessness, homelessness, and financial ruin. Catastrophic “acts of God” cause destruction, devastation, disease and death. How can we prevent these harsh life conditions from eroding our spirits, when our livelihoods, our homes, the very earth we stand on threatens to crumble away? How do we resist the call of the cynic, who says, “See, I told you so!” when it’s so patently obvious that he’s right?

How could it be bad? Cynicism is a by-product of intelligent discernment. It’s a refusal to drink the kool aid. Cynicism has fueled revolutions and helped to overturn oppressive empires. Cynicism has prevented many a snake oil salesman from making off with the family fortune. Cynicism may very well be a Darwinian response, necessary for the survival of the species.

The original Cynics were Greek philosophers. The basis of cynicism at that time was a belief in virtue and nature, and in the rejection of money and power as sources of happiness. Over time, cynicism became known much more for what it rejected than what it embraced. Modern definitions of the word tell us that today’s cynics have very little belief in the existence of virtue, and almost always focus instead on their conviction that all human motivation is selfish. It is tempting to conclude that cynics don’t believe in anyone or anything, but that is not true. Modern cynicism is not the absence of belief; it is a belief in failure, the failure of humans to rise above and reject their baser instincts in favor of virtue.

I wish to point out to Executive Management that there is a vast difference between believing in failure and simply recognizing it.

Clearly, the heartfelt speech delivered by “Coco” at the end of his Tonight Show run indicates that he still strongly believes in the good of man, despite the horrible way he’d just been treated by a bunch of them. You gotta hand it to a man who has been in television this long and still rejects cynicism. Although I’ve read an interview where he claimed to be purely as Irish Catholic as his ancestors who stepped off the boat in pre-Civil War Boston, I have the feeling that “Coco” is actually Greek for “I’m a believer!”.

I think the key to successful cynicism must be balance – go ahead and call ‘em as you see ‘em, but see BOTH the good and the bad. Extremism is never a good thing. See too much good, they’ll call you a Pollyanna. See too much bad, and you’re a misanthrope. See both and you’re… Conan O’Brien

Image: A poster created by Mike Mitchell during the Tonight Show controversy of 2010 displaying his “Coco” nickname.

© 2010, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

©2010 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

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I’m listening to answering machine messages. Mother says, “Take care of your cousins”.  Cousin A says, “so sad”. Cousin P says, “Crying, crying”.  They are talking about the death of my grandmother, which was ‘way back in the early 90s.  I’m thinking, That was years and years ago, how could you still be crying, why would you want to?

Now I’m in the car with my brothers; it’s the next day. At first, I think it’s Orlando, yet it’s not because my grandmother’s house in Queens (NY) is nearby. It is morning, and the sun is coming up to our left, which means we are headed south. It is reflecting, glaringly so, off these fancy buildings – one of them seems to be the Dolphin hotel, but no, it is shaped quite differently and the infrastructure of it (holding all this freakin’ glass together) is like white PVC pipes.  The glare has slowed down traffic immensely, and I’m thinking it should not be allowed, to make buildings like that so close to a major thoroughfare that it would cause danger to drivers.

Now I am in the clinic, and Dr. Karen S. comes out to get me.  I am surprised because 17 years ago, she was my radiation doctor, but I’m here to get chemo.  I don’t know why a radiation doctor would be administering chemo. She brings me in and I start asking questions about side effects.  There is a nurse there assisting her in discussing this with me.  It is Christa, one of my internet Disney geek friends! I ask if I will be too tired to drive myself home after – I can always drive to my grandparents house and crash there, I say, but Karen says I won’t be all that tired until later that night.  I get to the most important, most burning question – will I lose my hair? Karen looks away and says, “That’s what it looks like” and I’m like, “muthafucka…” under my breath, but out loud I say how I finally have a haircut I really like….  As she hangs the bag and prepares the needle, Christa kids that they will top off my cocktail with some fancy hair conditioner.

The alarm goes off.

ANALYSIS / REACTION

I was diagnosed on 10/12/1992, which is my older brother’s birthday.  The anniversary of the death of my grandmother, which was several years prior, I believe is around the same time, maybe 10/10 or 10/11.

For the casting decisions in this dream, I’m applying the technique that everyone in the dream is me, or some aspect of me. We can clearly see that even after all these years, I am still somewhat concerned about cancer, and I still miss my grandmother.  I do tend to become impatient with myself when I behave in ways that reveal what I perceive as weakness.  Actually, that’s my mother talking.  I know that, yet I still feel impatient and scornful of myself for my own vulnerabilities.  Other people are allowed to have them, sometimes, but me, NEVER.  Here, I feel like my cousins are either wusses, or else they are liars, being overly-dramatic, mourning my grandmother’s death like it was yesterday instead of 20-ish years ago.  That’s DEFINITELY my mother talking.  I am so intolerant of myself.

I also have other fish to fry.  Why “Mother” thinks I should take care of **them** when **I** am the one headed off for chemo, is beyond me.  I have tended to do this through life – distract myself from my own shit by taking care of other people’s shit.  Notice that I don’t do that here.  I just listen and then go about my business.  I also cast my brothers as my posse, my “backup” – I did watch “About A Boy” last night, which is about building your support system, your tribe, so you’ll have “backup”.  The person who wrote the “Wear Sunscreen” speech had it right -”Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.”  I know I can count on my brothers.  And there they are, my personal entourage, “I’m feeling alright, I’m with my boys, I’m with my troops, yeah”.  That’s Paul Simon’s “Late In The Evening” and yes, damned near everything reminds me of a song.

On the way from our house on Long Island to my grandmother’s house in Queens, we had to pass the World’s Fair grounds in Flushing Meadow Park.  The World’s Fair was in 1964-1965 and Walt Disney had a hand in designing it.  He also had a few attractions there, such as Carousel of Progress and It’s a Small World.  I loved going to the World’s Fair and remember quite a bit of it, even though I was quite small at the time.  I guess this is why I think it’s Orlando while we are on our way to the clinic and passing my grandparents’ house.

Christa cracks a joke, even while she prepares the implements of destruction and unhappiness. Isn’t that so like me? I will find something either ironic or ridiculous about every situation. Sometimes, it’s to make me feel better, but much of the time, it’s to make others feel better. Taking care of others does seem to be a theme here….

As to the dangerous situation that impedes traffic – I got nuttin’, except maybe that’s cancer itself.  It did throw me off the track of what I’d been striving towards at the time (singing career). But there’s a distracting, blinding aspect to it, and the blindness is what creates the danger. What has blinded me, and what is it that I cannot see? Is it that I cannot see, or is it that I *will* not see? And why is not seeing it so dangerous?

Anyone? Buehler? (that’s an invitation to comment, please!)

Why is Dr. S. doing chemo now?  There’s something not right about that…. if she is me in this dream, well she’s doing something really important, yet radically different from what she did before.  Either she was doing the wrong thing before, or else she’s doing the wrong thing now.  There are people in this world that would say the same of me – they’d say, “I don’t know why a poet-star would be playing Madam Vice President at a bank”.  I cast her in the wrong role in this dream, I did.  Poor “Karen”! 

“Poet-Star” just popped into my head – it’s the name of a poem I wrote, ‘way back in 1979.  The pertinent verses:

One girl lives with music and another lives with death.
One girl’s counting money while another holds her breath.
One girl is a poet, is a singer, is a star.
She searches for a galaxy that seems so very far.
She wants to be the center of a universe somewhere.
She wants to be with sunshine, but it’s raining over there….

The poet, singer, star was always me. The other girls were all friends of mine, people who aspired to be a musician, a nurse, a banker and someone who was in sort of a holding pattern at the time. But how prophetic – today, you could say they are ALL me, pieces of me at points in time. I studied voice and performed for 20-something years. I had cancer, a brush with death. I am, indeed, Madam Vice President at a bank. Waiting, waiting, waiting…. for what? For “something”…

Don’t get me wrong. I have a good life, one that is largely of my own making, a fact that is personally pretty satisfying. But clearly (and on several different fronts), I’m not where I’d intended to be, all those years ago, and the urge to fix that, to embark upon a terrifying course-correction, is going to come to a point of critical “mass”, probably soon.

I do believe cancer is only a metaphor this time. Actually, it was a metaphor last time, too, only it manifested into reality, somehow.

“Something’s coming…..”. I will need to remember the entire verse this time, so it manifests into what will make me happy.

Something’s coming!
I don’t know
what it is
but it is gonna be great!

You know what, I do too know what it is. But it’s terrifying. I have that awful/exhilarating adrenaline rush that you get AFTER you just narrowly avoided a car accident. I’m shaking while typing this. I never shake. Shit.

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

©2010 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. Something’s coming…
2. When all is crumbling

A friend recently blogged a Facebook note about how old habits and routines break down and fall away to make room for new habits that more directly align with whatever is coming next. She said the Black Eyed Peas’ current hit kept playing in her head –

I got a feeling
that tonight’s gonna be a good night
that tonight’s gonna be a good, good night…

- and that she had a feeling of anticipation, that she was on the edge of some great change.

Reading her thoughts brought to mind something I’d written to my friend Penny long ago. Penny moved away to California while we were still in our twenties and we began to write to one another. One night I saw an episode of thirtysomething and got an idea. Two of the characters had written a poem together over a long distance, passing a notebook back and forth through the mail, each adding a stanza before mailing it back. Why couldn’t we do that, I thought. So I bought a notebook and we began to write.

Lo these many years later, I read my friend’s “I got a feeling…” entry and decided to make a foray into The Box. Out came Volume V of the books that got mailed back and forth between New York and California for so many years. I didn’t have to turn too many pages before I found what I was looking for. I was surprised to see that my handwriting, usually so anally neat, was a bit scraggly-looking, but then I realized I’d been on the train when I wrote it, so I forgave myself

Thursday 22 December 1994

6:40 PM

Just passing through Hicksville…

I made a note to myself to tell you about the “something’s coming” vs. “something’s missing” phenomenon.

“Something’s Coming” is a feeling I used to carry with me while growing up. I had this feeling until very recently. I realized it was gone when I started last summer (1993) to get the stage fright thing and the paralysis dream.

“Something’s Coming” is actually the name of a song from West Side Story – you recall, I’m sure, the line that goes, “Something’s coming, I don’t know what it is, but it is gonna be great!”. That’s the feeling, right there in that one line. There was nothing I couldn’t get through because I knew I was destined for “something”. Whatever it was, it would be wonderful, exciting and totally awesome. It would have a staggeringly positive impact on my life and maybe even the world. Whatever it was, it was BIG.

Now, I am horrified to suspect that it may just have been cancer.

I am rather upset that I have been deprived of feeling special and significant, however self-delusional that feeling was. At certain times in my life, it was all I had. It saved me, I am sure, from sinking into the abyss. In its place, there is now a big, fat nothing. “Something’s missing”.

I am not certain that I have ever stopped to articulate this so clearly before, even to myself. Reality really sucks, for it was a mega-dose of reality that wiped out my conviction that “something’s coming”.

So, how now to fill up the hole? I just bet there’s some sort of long, drawn-out, sucky mourning period involved here, on account of my profound loss of “something”. Yes, I know I’m being sarcastic, and no, I don’t care that I am. I prefer my world to be filled with peace and love, with equal doses of joy and wonder and excitement at the mere thought of life. And mostly, that’s how I am. I really detest all this negative shit that comes up in therapy, and I often wonder if the source of all this crap is endless or do I just keep manufacturing it anew?

I remember those years well, when my secret knowledge of “something” had me living on the giddy precipice of anticipation. What happened?

I was just thirty four when I wrote that letter to Penny. December of 1994 was two years post-diagnosis and about a year and a half post-treatment. I was floundering and resentful of the intrusion of catastrophic illness into my life.

It’s possible that life events had beat the crap out of me and I could no longer muster up the strength to sustain the illusion. Or, for a quasi-mystical point of view, it is possible that cancer really WAS what was “coming”. Or – and I think this was more likely – it was possible that I didn’t need it any more.

“Something’s coming” had gotten me through some grim times. I’d just proven that I could survive being gravely ill and all of the physical and psychological torment that had entailed. What need did I have for “something”?

Well, maybe I don’t need it, but I want it. I want that feeling back. The dream-giver DOES still wait for me. I’ve been on the smoothest course for a while now.

Time to shake things up

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

©2010 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

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Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

Gratefully, I had a very different experience in The Box this time. Clearly, 10th grade had been the happiest year of my teens – this cute boy named Harry was crazy about me, and I was enormously popular! It’s all right there in my diary. What a satisfying read, and how grateful I was to be presented with the evidence, provided in the often-breathless, always exuberant style of my inner 15 year old. Harry did this, and Harry said that, and Harry is so cute and funny… I cannot keep the smile off my face, even typing this.

Remember last month, when I wrote about not wanting to be around when people were playing with a Ouija board? Well, something I read in the diary that I had not remembered had to do with Ouija and the softer side of Harry. At the sweet 16 party my friends threw for me, which the boys had crashed, someone dragged out a Ouija board. Despite my protestations, the lights were dimmed and they started playing. I got up and left the vicinity until it was over, and a few of them laughed at me for being scared. Not Harry. He abandoned the game and planted himself close to me, never saying a word. Looking back, I find that so unusual for a boy of his age; one would think he’d be prone toward leveraging a teasing opportunity, but he didn’t.

I read the diary up until the part where my family moved away, and put down the book feeling very certain that no subsequent developments could possibly detract from any of my fond memories of him and our good times spent together. We were buddies, we had fun together, and we had progressed to a point whereby we were happily devoted to one another in a carefree way that only people who have not yet been hurt by love can be.

A very clear picture began to emerge of what had been bothering me the most. It was the thought that their love for me had been a lie; that because they were gay, these young men could not possibly have loved me like they said they did. I’d been laboring under the false notion that a guy is either gay and loves men, or straight and loves women – there was no spectrum, no bell curve, no shades of gray. It had especially bugged me where Harry was concerned; my memories of our brief time together were very happy ones, filled with healing laughter that helped to displace the grim realities of home. The black-and-white thinking I’d been indulging in had threatened to invalidate what had arguably been the brightest period of my otherwise miserable teens.

Putting it all together – the wisdom of “mah sistas”, the experiential knowledge shared by Spencer and especially, the diary entries – it all reinforces something I already knew but apparently needed to be reminded of. It’s something akin to what we learned in science classes back in school. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. It’s the same with love.

To quote myself, “…love is infinite. Which means, not only does it abide into the future, but it abides into the past, with no alpha or omega. Kind of like God.”

And so it happens that when we love, we are like God for one another. Love heals, love transforms, and love never fails.

My inner 15 year old smiles, and whispers, “I will always love you, Harry.”

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

©2010 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 3 of 7
2. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 2 of 7
3. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 4 of 7
4. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 6 of 7
5. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 1 of 7

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

In the meantime, I’d also done what all women seem to do when such life questions arise – I took it to “mah sistas”. I am fortunate enough to be a member of not just one, but TWO private online communities of amazing women who gather daily to hold one another up in both joy and sorrow. The most resonating answer I got was from a wise woman who likened sexual preference to a bell curve. On the one end, you have your hard-core heterosexuals, and on the other end, your hardcore homosexuals. And then, there are those who can and do ride the curve, often but not always leaning discernibly toward one side or the other… how far can they go, where is the line, and how close to it can they dance?

I now understood it was not only possible that I had been genuinely loved – it was also very probable. There was once place left to turn in order to validate that – my diary from 10th grade.

I began keeping a diary when I was about 13, and did so with a very deliberate purpose in mind. I had the distinct impression that the adults in my life had forgotten what it’s like to be a kid, and I wanted to always remember. In those days, I had yet to arrive in the place where I’d challenged the validity of moving unquestioningly from childhood into the traditional wife/mother role. At that time, I had still believed that someday I would have children, and if I didn’t want to fuck them up and make them hate me, I’d better set about documenting everything. This way, I would never forget, never belittle their fears and aspirations, or disparage any of the other things that were important to them. As it turns out, I am childless by choice, and my nieces have been the primary beneficiaries of having an aunt who has remained close to the emotions of her inner teenager.

Fetching my 10th grade diary necessitated a foray into The Box. The last time I had visited The Box was sometime in April; spurred on by the rekindling of old acquaintances on Facebook, I actually removed the yellowed packing tape, opened the lid, and started reading for the first time in some 30+ years. My choice of reading material on that occasion had made me incredibly sad. I was hoping this wouldn’t be a repeat…

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

©2010 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 7 of 7
2. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 4 of 7
3. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 2 of 7
4. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 5 of 7
5. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 3 of 7

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

“First of all,” Spencer replied, “what do PEOPLE see in you?”, whereupon he rattled off a number of my finer attributes that would be appealing to anyone of any “cognizance, originality, coolness or forthrightness”. OK, this is good, I thought. He’s made me feel better already In typical Spencer fashion, he then proceeded to inject a little levity into the situation. He joked that every gay man wants to be associated with a “diva”, and reminded me how attractive he’d found my “Peggy Lipton hairdo” back in the 80s, when I was going through my long-and-screamingly-blonde phase.

Finally, he got down to brass tacks. He first pointed out that birds of a feather tend to flock together; that I’d been reared in a household with a very specific family dynamic that included a “very present, difficult, and perhaps even hostile mother” – as had he, and many other gay men he knew. He pointed out a commonality; gay men tend to grow up as “minorities” against whom discriminatory practices have been perpetrated, and hadn’t I grown up under similar conditions, as the only daughter in a very strict and traditional household that afforded the sons far more social freedom? He pointed out that even though he self-identifies as gay and has been in a long-term relationship with a male partner for quite some time, he is still occasionally sexually and romantically attracted to women possessing certain attributes. Finally, Spencer said, “TRUST ME, he still thinks about you from time to time,” and urged me to make contact.

After digesting his email, I came to understand what Spencer was trying to tell me; if empathy is compelling enough, then it can metamorphosize into an attraction that is not only agnostic of gender, but strong enough to transcend sexual orientation as well.

Spencer’s email gave me much fuel for thought, and I eventually realized that being gay was probably not the only thing Harry and Mark held in common. There was probably another similarity between them. I’ve joked in the past about “Peter Pan – he’s every man I’ve ever dated”, but it’s really no joke. There IS something about me, but it doesn’t attract gay men; it attracts the “motherless lost boys” of the world. As luck would have it, some of them happen to be gay. I’m still not sure WHY this is the type I attract; I’m playing with a theory, but it’s not well-formed just yet, so I’ll leave it for another time.

I was not at all sure that contact was appropriate. Harry had changed his name for a reason, maybe because he did not want to be found. I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted contact, either…

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

©2010 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 4 of 7
2. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 7 of 7
3. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 2 of 7
4. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 1 of 7
5. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 3 of 7

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

The question had haunted me way back then when I’d found out about Mark, but other boys had been waiting in the wings and I was soon distracted enough to put such thoughts aside. Now that I knew about Harry too, it seemed really important to find the answer.

It is very difficult to explain what it feels like to know that you have fallen for not one but two guys who, as it turns out, supposedly “don’t like girls” – at least not THAT way. When your understanding of the sexuality spectrum includes only black and white, you can walk away from such an experience feeling as though the person you fell in love with was someone you’d made up. You experience an uncomfortable epiphany – it’s possible that his declarations of love had been lies. You vaguely suspect that you’ve been used unwittingly as the implement of some sort of deception, but you’re not quite sure if that’s entirely accurate, or who it was supposed to fool – himself, you or the world. And finally – you hope this is not the case, but you sort of dread the thought that maybe this whole thing might be a commentary on your own feminine allure, or lack thereof. I’m not the girly-est of girls – all those brothers, you know, plus a sense of justice that does not allow for the notion of freezing to death in a skirt when the boys get to stay warm wearing pants. So, my fevered and panicked brain reasoned, maybe the straight guys don’t find any of that as appealing as the gay guys do? WTF?!?!?!!!

I needed an answer to this question. There were two places I could go to get some clues. One of them was my 10th grade diary. The other was Spencer.

I have known Spencer since we were both in our early 20s and he was still dating women. I don’t recall exactly when or how he came out, which may simply indicate that it was sort of a non-event among the people close to him. He didn’t make a big announcement or anything. He just kind of slid out. We had studied voice with the same teacher, and we did get to perform together once in a production of Cavalleria Rusticana, in which he took great and gleeful pleasure in flinging me to the ground during the lovers’ quarrel duet. Spencer now lives and performs in Europe.

I was convinced that he’d truly been crazy about some of the women he’d dated, even contemplating marriage and children with one of them. If anyone could help me to understand, it was Spencer. Shortly after my googling spree and subsequent discovery about Harry, I fired off an email to Spencer, which explained in brief about both Harry and Mark, and asked the $64,000 question…

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

©2010 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 5 of 7
2. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 7 of 7
3. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 3 of 7
4. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 2 of 7
5. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 6 of 7

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

Truthfully, my outer 49 year old wasn’t doing so well now, either. This was not the first time I’d discovered that a boy I’d loved and thought loved me was, in fact, gay. During my senior year in high school, I’d dated Mark, who was two years older (sorry, no cougar story there). Mark ran hot and cold about us to extremes. He was crazy in love with me one minute, but then he’d disappear for a couple of weeks. He would return all in love with me again, and kiss my ass to get back into my good graces, or else he’d pretend he’d never been gone and everything was fine. He swore to me that he was not seeing another girl; I guess I should have asked a less gender-specific question.

At one point, Mark had me so convinced that he loved me and that we were meant to be together forever, he became my “first” – a much more significant first than just kissing. But he just kept disappearing periodically, and I didn’t know why, or what I’d done to alienate him, or why he kept coming back. At some point, I was prepared to go to my senior prom with someone else, but then he swooped back into my life and declared that HE was taking me and no one else.

He broke up with me that night. He broke up with me forever and for good at my senior prom. That really sucked. I think the only people with prom memories worse than mine are the ones that inhabit Stephen King’s Carrie.

A couple of weeks later, I ran into a mutual friend who knew the truth and had the compassion to tell me. That’s how I found out Mark was gay, and that all those times he wasn’t with me, he’d been with some guy named Angel… he’d been confused, he couldn’t make up his mind which way to go, so he kept bouncing back and forth between the two of us until he wasn’t confused any more. (Excuse me? You were confused, so you decided to relieve me of my virginity? )

My inner 15 year old stood up at this point, yanked at my sleeve, and demanded to know, “What is it about me that attracts gay men?”

I had no idea what to tell her.

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

©2010 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 2 of 7
2. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 4 of 7
3. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 7 of 7
4. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 5 of 7
5. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 1 of 7

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

So, here’s what happened to Harry. Harry apparently grew up to become the owner of a talent agency… an adult entertainment talent agency… an all-male, adult entertainment talent agency.

Shocked, I sat quietly for a moment, allowing what I’d just learned to sink in. And then I laughed. And I laughed and laughed and laughed. Harry always was a little bit on the outrageous side. OK, a LOT on the outrageous side. My friends always said three things about him. Well, four, if you count, “You guys look great together!”. They said he was funny, they said he had beautiful baby blues, and they said, “But my GAWD, he’s totally OBNOXIOUS!”.

My 15 year old self agreed wholeheartedly that we looked good together; we were around the same height, so we just kind of fit together walking down the hallways at school, arms wrapped around each other. I also agreed that he was funny and that his eyes were a wondrous shade of blue (it is worth noting that I love the color blue so much, I coveted a blue suede sofa from Crate and Barrel for years, and finally bought it last spring). However, coming from a household with three brothers, I had a high tolerance for “obnoxious” and barely noticed it. I just took it in stride that when dealing with teenaged boys, a certain quantity of “obnoxious” comes with the territory. When we were one-on-one, Harry was just a funny, sweet boy with a wicked – but never mean – sense of humor. However, when a wider audience was available, that’s when he was “on”. I still wouldn’t call it “obnoxious” – more like “outrageous”. He didn’t just entertain, he “shockertained”; the more off-beat and out-there he could be, the better it delighted him. It was like he was testing us – how far could he go, where was the line, how close to it could he dance?

I broke myself out of the reverie of distant memories. I wanted to know more.

It wasn’t long before I’d amassed a fair amount of information regarding what Harry had been doing with himself for at least the last 5 years or so. He’d left a fairly easy-to-follow breadcrumb trail across the internet under his new name, and I soon came to understand that he was a fairly big shit deal in the gay community in his area, well-respected for his contributions to adult entertainment industry practices, and for his donations to charitable causes as well. As I continued to learn about him, I was startled to realize that my 49 year old self could look back in time, see the signs, and fully accept what everything I was reading about him implied – but my inner 15 year old was having a really rough time with it. She flat out would not accept mere “implications”, and kept pushing me to search for something concrete that spelled it out in no uncertain terms.

OK, here we go; MySpace. Harold A*****, age 40-something. Same logo from the business, instead of a head shot.

Status: In a relationship.

Orientation: Gay

My inner 15 year old deflated and crumbled into a crestfallen heap…

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

©2010 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 7 of 7
2. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 3 of 7
3. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 1 of 7
4. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 4 of 7
5. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 6 of 7

Whatever happened to Harry? is a series written as a follow up to My “cougar” days, part one

I hope you will all excuse me for taking a little breather. I needed some processing time. I’m going to interrupt my intended “cougar” series to tell you all about it. After you read what I’m about to tell you, I think you will forgive me; it was a little difficult to wrap my brain around it.

I ended my last post by recounting whatever became of the “engagement” ring and the tiny, perfect, silver cross. Not long after posting, I started to wonder whatever became of Harry. And so, I took my madd googling skillz to the interwebz and launched a quest to locate Harry, long-lost bestower of first kisses.

I started in the logical place – Facebook. It’s like the village green of the entire planet, or maybe more like Tevye’s dream in Fiddler On The Roof – eventually, everyone you ever knew is going to pass through there. Unfortunately, a search for “Harry M*** “ came up nil; likewise “Harold M***”. I googled around a bit but kept coming back to Facebook, looking for people we’d hung out with back then, to see if they knew how to contact him.

And then one morning over coffee, I remembered Harry’s sister Jennie. She and my older brother were in the same graduating class, and we’d had an elective together – History of the Occult, where the only thing I remember learning is that Dracula’s real name was Vlad the Impaler. I found her profile easily, and cruised through her friends list in search of her brother. The only “Harry” I found on her friend list was a “Harold A*****”. Disappointed, I abandoned the search and started my work day.

But something kept nibbling at my brain about this. It was not improbable that he just wasn’t on Facebook – after all, none of my own brothers had signed up. Still, something nagged at me about it. I could not get it off my mind, and then halfway through the work day, it dawned on me. I remembered teasing Harry about his initials, but being a theater geek, he was quite proud that they spelled H.A.M. …..

Before I knew it, I found myself wading through Jennie’s friend list again, clicking on Harold A*****, whereupon I was faced with the typical “Harold only shares certain information with everyone. To learn more about Harold, add him as a friend.” Well, I wasn’t about to do that until I was sure. His profile picture was no help. It was not actually a picture, but the logo of some dot com. I plugged the address into the URL bar, and…

Oh.

My.

GAWD

I hit the “back” button on the browser, fast.

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

©2010 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 2 of 7
2. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 3 of 7
3. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 7 of 7
4. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 5 of 7
5. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 6 of 7

What a ridiculous term by the way – “cougar”. Where the hell did that come from? I’ve been googling around to find out how a woman who pursues relationships with younger men has come to be known as a “cougar”, but no one seems to know. I even looked up some facts about the actual feline known as “cougar”, also known as puma, panther, or mountain lion, depending on if you live in Texas, Florida or Wyoming. I found no evidence that the female cougar prefers younger male cougars for mates, but did find reference to adults being more or less solitary and meeting for one reason and one reason only – mating. Perhaps this is the basis for the terminology – hunting for a mate, then going home alone. I know, it’s a stretch, but aside from that I got nuttin’ !!!

A survey conducted by AARP asserts that 34% of women surveyed responded indicating that they were dating younger men, thereby fitting the definition of “cougar”. The survey is 6 years old at the time of this writing. Spurred on by high-profile romances such as that of Ashton Kutscher and Demi Moore, I imagine that statistic has only grown in the intervening years.

Guess what? There was a time when I fit the “cougar” definition, too. Yes, ladies and gentlemen – I was cougar before cougar was cool I once calculated it and came up with a startling statistic – I am older than 80-something percent of all the guys I’ve ever been involved with. Age differences have ranged from 3 months all the way up to 8 years.

(As an aside, I also calculated that 80-something percent of all the guys I’ve ever dated and/or married were also Jewish. Yes, we detect a pattern here. No, I haven’t really tried to analyze it. I grew up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Queens, so I’m not shocked that I’ve got an affinity for Jewish guys).

I began my auspicious career as a cougar circa 1975-76. Harry was in 9th grade and I was in 10th. He was exactly my height, sandy brown hair, blue eyes, with freckles. A class-clown type, Harry really knew how to make me laugh, and he was just adorable. Soon after we met, he got his braces removed, a fact which relieved him no end. I’d privately thought that they only added to his adorableness factor.

We were both in the high school chorus, and both had 5th period free, during which time we ran errands for the people working in the guidance office. One day, the student body decided to stage a “walk out” during 5th period over some (no doubt) burning, socially relevant issue, and Harry and I decided to walk up to McDonald’s instead of hanging out in the guidance office. I guess that was our first “date”.

Soon after that, he proposed to me amidst the melee that occurs periodically each day at every high school across America – otherwise known as the break between classes. We were passing on the staircase. I was trapped in the throngs heading up, while he was heading down. There’s no stopping when you’re in the crush of humanity on the staircase in an over-crowded New York City public school. He was looking for me; he saw me and thrust something rather sharp and pointy into my hand. As the crowd swept him away, he hollered over his shoulder, “Marry me!”. I opened my hand to find a copper-colored paper clip, bent pretzel-style into the likeness of a ring. Despite the fact that the ring eventually left a greenish tattoo on my finger, I was da shit for the duration of the school year. A boy, a CUTE, nice Jewish boy (all my friends were Jewish – I was the token shiksa) had proposed. With witnesses! It seems like half the school was on that staircase during the first (but not last) proposal of my life. This is how I came to be the sensation of the 10th grade that year.

I received my first-ever kiss – with tongue! – from Harry. I suspect it was his first as well. We were riding in the back of a car driven by the senior boyfriend of one of my pals, on our way to a party. The sun was shining on a fine spring day, and the Beatles crooned All My Lovin’ as we practiced our exploratory maneuvers, entirely neck-up, on each other. Thereafter, just walking down the halls or ambling hand-in-hand down the street, one or the other of us would spontaneously burst into All My Lovin’, while the other harmonized. To this day, when I hear that song all I can think of is Harry and soft, first kisses in the warm sunshine.

When my friends threw me a girls-only Sweet 16 party, Harry and some of the guys from our crowd crashed. The hostess was my friend Denise, God rest her soul. She was rather put out, but I was delighted. They came bearing gifts. One of the boys gave me Wings At The Speed Of Sound and another Endless Summer. Only, they were LPs! You actually needed a record player to play them! These remain staples of my music collection. Harry, however, chose to come bearing jewelry. He’d petitioned his grandmother for funding and presented me with a tiny, perfect sterling silver cross. This was a grand gesture coming from a nice Jewish boy and his bubbie! I treasured it and wore it always, even after we moved away, which ended our relationship.

Fast-forward one year, which can seem like a thousand at that age. I was a junior at my new high school and a senior asked me to accompany him to his prom. The day after the prom, we went to see a show on Broadway in NYC, and who should we bump into outside the theater but Harry. It seems a senior had asked him to the prom too, at our old high school. We were ecstatic to see one another, but that made our dates antsy, so we had to be brief. A year had made a huge difference – I could tell he was now officially WAY taller than I was, and he was even cuter, if that was possible. His parents had relocated him, too – to California. We wrote to one another a few times, but as often happens with young love, one or the other of us stopped writing and that was the end of that.

I don’t know what became of the “engagement ring”. It probably disintegrated and went to paper clip heaven. But I do know what happened to the silver cross. Fast forward another year, to the magically golden summer of 1978. Our town sponsored an outdoor summer theater workshop, and during rehearsals for a dance number, the chain I wore the cross on somehow got caught on someone else. The chain snapped and it all went flying into the night. Several people helped me look for it. We found the chain, but the cross was lost forever. I probably would have been inconsolable, had it not been the magically golden summer of 1978 and That Boy.

Oh, and the show we were doing? Fiddler On The Roof – OY!

NEXT TIME: His name was Jeremy…

Further reading: Here’s the article that inspired me to explore my inner cougar

Click to read The Cougar: Progressive or Exploitative? on BlogHer

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

©2010 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 3 of 7
2. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 1 of 7
3. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 2 of 7
4. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 4 of 7
5. Whatever happened to Harry? Part 7 of 7

Niece No. 2, aka my God-Niece, updated her status on Facebook this morning and has not been back to elaborate. Her status currently declares that she “never wants to be a parent”.

Never is a pretty long time. I’m intrigued, and looking forward to asking her what brought this on when I see her next. She’s coming to spend a week with me “doing nothing” on the beach next month. I’m sure it will be an illuminating conversation!

It started me thinking, though, about all the reasons I’ve had over the years for not wanting to have children. All these years, I’ve given the impression that it does boil down to that simple, declarative statement – I never wanted to be a parent. But in reality, nothing is ever that simple.

Growing up, my dolls were never really my babies – they were my friends. I never clamored to be the mother whenever the kids in my neighborhood played “house”. I just never had the drive toward motherhood when I was little.

I was babysitter of choice in my neighborhood when I became a teenager.  The kids adored me, and I them.  I wrote fabulous tales of adventure and heroism, and put them in starring roles in these epics.  I played the best games, and kept their secrets while still keeping them out of harm’s way.  I was their friend and guide – but NEVER their mother-figure.

In my late teens, I indulged in a little pipe-dreaming with a particular boy (yes, THAT boy) about “some day” and how it would be when we established our home and our family together – right down to “two cats in the yard”.  The scenario included a vague quantity of children, at least two judging from a sketch he drew for me one time.  At this point, though, I feel it fair to point out that for me, it really WAS dreaming; I felt very little real identification with the possibility that it could actually come true.  At 17-18 years of age, I’d already had a number of experiences that taught me the rug would be ripped out from under me as soon as I became comfortable and happy, so I don’t think I ever actually believed that “some day” would manifest into reality.

Later in life, I had what turned out to be an ill-fated marriage, to someone else.  But in the beginning, when I still had every intention of going through life with him, I picked out names; Julie for a girl (Julianna, actually, like the queen of the Netherlands) and Jordan for a boy. This was a nod to the name of the female lead in the musical Carousel. It was my first role after starting to study with Gloria, a radical departure from the roles I’d been playing – I’d learned how to sing like an ingenue.  I thought it was neat that “Julie Jordan” had two first names instead of a first and a last.  Anyway – eventually, I accepted that I was married to the wrong person, and actively sought to prevent the manifestation of children. I believed he would not pull his weight as a parent; he wasn’t pulling his weight as a partner, and I saw no reason to believe a baby would change any of that.  I already felt overwhelmed by the responsibilities of being an adult, having a household to tend to along with a full time job and a budding stage career.  I felt responsible for everything, and I didn’t see the sense in adding to those responsibilities.

I recognized, fortunately, that many men want children for the same reason they’d like a Porsche in the garage.  They love being able to brag about having one, but they want nothing to do with the maintenance.  I further recognized that a woman who is married to this sort of man is in for 18 years (minimum) of indentured servitude, self-sacrifice and subjugation of all her wants, needs and desires, always putting the needs of the children first, never getting an assist.

I grew up in a very restrictive environment.  I didn’t get to make the simplest of decisions for myself; everything was controlled to the nth degree.  I had no say in the clothes I wore, the way I styled my hair, the friends I was allowed to have…. no freedom of choice at all.  I was tired of external sources dictating every little detail of everything for me.  I wanted freedom.  The idea of living under restrictions again was not at all appealing.

I feared that, under virtual single-parent conditions, I would become resentful and miserable. This would leak over onto the children. I’d been on the receiving end of something similar. I knew what it was to really hate being treated that way.

Bottom line: I knew it would break my heart to have any child of mine hurt so badly that they would come to hate me.  I could not bear the thought of it. I’d been trying to prepare myself for a long time to not make the same mistakes my parents did. I started a diary at age 13 or so, for the express purpose of never forgetting what it is like to be a kid. I thought that would help me to be a better parent. Probably, it would have.  Definitely, under the “some day” scenario, with the right partner, it would have worked.  But once I piled the wrong partner on top of my fears that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree… there was no way I was going to introduce children into the scenario.  They would only suffer for it.

So, all these years, many of you reading this have had the understanding that I didn’t WANT children.  That is not necessarily the whole truth.  As is typical for me, I knew far better what I didn’t want.  What I didn’t want was to feel used and trapped.  What I didn’t want was to make children who were destined to suffer and to resent me for it.  What I didn’t want was to gift someone with a Porsche that I would then be forced to maintain solo. 

God is good.  Some women who go through chemo lose their ability to reproduce.  I was 33 when they finally decided that those episodes whereby my head felt like it was spinning into orbit were actually hot flashes, and that meant I was entering menopause.  I was not a candidate for estrogen replacement, because that’s what my tumor ate for a living – estrogen.  Therefore, I believe that God picked the right person to visit with this condition.  It would have been a real tragedy if God had picked a woman who would have been devastated by infertility.  From that perspective, I’m glad God chose me.  And it really kind of settled the question once and for all.  Want or not want, it was moot – “can’t” was now the operative word, and aside from a mild twinge now and then, I’ve really been ok with it, with the finality of it.

All of this led to my ability to focus some individualized attention (not to mention disposable income) in the direction of my nieces.  And now I’m wondering if it also led to an example being set for them of an alternative option.  Even growing up in the 60s and being exposed to media coverage of “women’s liberation”, Gloria Steinem, fish having no need of bicycles, etc., I still had some notion that one grew up and got married and had children because that’s what one did.  I’m sure the extremely conservative way in which I was raised contributed to that; my parents often said that a young woman did not leave her parents house unless it was to move into her husband’s house. 

This hasn’t been true for my nieces, thankfully.  They actually get to leave the house and go away to college – without first having to get married!  Although I would never want to discourage them from having a family if that’s what they wanted, I do hope that my life has somehow served to let them know that a person can be legitimately productive and happy leading an alternative lifestyle, that there is another choice besides wife and mother.  There’s the choice to be childless.  When I ask about the mysterious Facebook status update, I might find that this is the case, or I might find that she was just in a very bad mood.  Either way – it’s satisfying to know that there are children in this world whom I love, that I’ve not made them suffer and they don’t hate me   So maybe it was the right choice after all.

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

©2010 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. The baubles he brings, part 1
2. Forgiving Salinger

J. D. Salinger used to be my favorite author. I first read Catcher in the Rye circa 1973-ish, when I was in 7th or 8th grade; my science teacher was actually loaning it around to people in my class, and I got on the list and read it and loved it. I loved it so much, that by time I got to 10th grade and we were actually reading it in English class, I swiped a copy. I still have it. Ancient, tattered, it bears the stamp on the inside cover, “MARTIN VAN BUREN HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH DEPARTMENT” (watch me get fined now or something – arrested, even!). It’s well-worn because it has been read a bazillion times.

A few years later, someone loaned me a copy of Nine Stories and I fell in love. With Salinger, too! I liked “For Esme, With Love and Squalor” best, but his favorite was “Teddy”. If I recall correctly, he had to beg me repeatedly to return the book to him. I think eventually I must have, because the copy I have on my bookshelf now is a mass-market paperback from 1991, and my introduction to Nine Stories was circa 1978. I also have a paperback copy of Franny and Zooey on my shelves.

Still more years later, there came unto us the internet, and Salinger was one of the first of those seemingly day-long searches I used to conduct back then with my CompuSpend oops I meant to say CompuServe account. I found out lots about him that day. He was reclusive. He refused interviews. He’d published short stories prolifically, in such prestigious publications as Colliers, Good Housekeeping, The Saturday Evening Post and The New Yorker, to name a few. There are many pages on the internet devoted to lists of Salinger’s “uncollected works”, nearly all of them mentioning that he doesn’t want them “collected”.

And then came that fateful year I picked up a copy of Dreamcatcher, Margaret Salinger’s memoir of growing up in the orbit of her famous father. Ah, FINALLY, some good and detailed information about my favorite author! I took the book with me on vacation to Sanibel Island and devoured it. After finishing it, this is what I had to say about it in my trip journal:

“I have to say that up until finishing this memoir, J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye” was my all-time favorite novel. However, now that I know that he was such a pitiful excuse for a husband and father, my enjoyment of his writings has become tarnished. This man and his wife were classic examples of those who should not breed, for they steadfastly failed to comprehend their responsibilities as parents. If even half of what Peggy Salinger has written is true, both parents needed institutionalization followed by a swift kick in the pants to straighten their sorry asses out.”

Yes, the bloom was off the rose. I’d spent happy decades revering the man whose mind invented Holden Caulfield, only to discover that he was a whacko. No wonder he was hiding. He might be sick, but he’s not stupid. If a life-long fan can become turned off by the truth about him, think what would happen with casual readers. Think of all those unpurchased paperbacks. Think of all those 10th graders whose parents are having a hard enough time with the fact that they’re reading a book spattered with the F word and various other expletives. You wanna see books burning? Just wait until they find out what a horrible father he was!

And so, for the last 6 years, I’ve sulked, refusing to do the annual pilgrimage into the mind of the teenager that is Holden Caulfield. A few of those 6 years, my books were in storage, anyhow, so I didn’t really need to sulk those years, but probably did anyway. I did lay hands upon my Salinger paperbacks, though – twice. I’ve moved twice in that time period, and so I actually touched them without reading them, once to pack them up into storage, and then again when I got to the new house and unpacked them.

I had to do a book purge when I got here. I don’t know what possessed me to own so many books, never mind pack them and pay to move them from Long Island to Florida. I knew it had to be done, but it still felt like an amputation. I posted the titles online to various forums and lists, and mailed out the ones that people wanted. The rest went to Goodwill in Lehigh Acres, where the manager of the place was grateful to receive them.

Interestingly, I gave away Margaret’s hardcover, but kept J. D.’s paperbacks. Oh, I was still mad at him, but somewhere inside, I was still deeply attached to ol’ J.D. and his stories. There are other items I’ve dragged with me from pillar to post over the years, items that I keep in a certain Box, items that I have not wanted to read but not wanted to part with, either. But that’s another post for another day.

My recent run-in with personal history, compliments of Facebook led to a raid on that certain Box… (when I can face The Box again, I’ll let y’all know). The raid on The Box led to remembering Nine Stories in ways in which I had not indulged in many, many years. And so I left The Box and proceeded to comb the bookshelves in my home office, whereupon I found the book, turned immediately to the last chapter where I knew I’d find “Teddy”, and read it through.

J.D. is a talented, sensitive, brilliant writer. These attributes coexist with ineptitude as a husband and a father. Margaret Salinger commented something to the effect that she’d expected the man who thought up the role of the catcher, the guy who keeps kids from running off a cliff, to be that for her. Given that she is his child, I’d say she had a right to expect that, and has a right to be disappointed about it. I hope writing the book has helped her to cope with that disappointment, at least somewhat. I know that such profound disappointment in a parent is not something you ever really get over, but you can’t let it cripple you for the rest of your life, either.

So I read “Teddy” and I enjoyed it. And remembered. And shed a few tears. I’m not sure I’m ready to forgive ol’ J.D. yet, just as I’m not quite sure that I’m ready to forgive myself. All this time, I thought I’d abandoned Salinger in solidarity with his daughter, because he was such a poor parent. But now… now, I think I realize that it may have less to do with his sins than it has to do with my own. Like a lot of things associated with that time in my life, J.D. now makes me feel like that 17-18 year old fuck-up I used to be, flailing around on the bottom rung of Maslow’s hierarchy, so desperate to survive, so heedless of the wounds I was inflicting upon others. And, let’s face it – upon myself.

Clearly, I am in need of redemption. Got any ideas, anyone? Perhaps the answer lies somewhere between the covers of Nine Stories. Perhaps I should read the whole thing. Just to find out.

© 2009, The Single Rider. All rights reserved.

©2010 The Single Rider. All Rights Reserved.

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