An Over-the-Shoulder Look
May. 13th, 2018 10:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dedalus_1947Then you smiled over your shoulder
And for a minute, I was stone-cold sober.
I knew I loved you then
But you'd never know
'Cause I played it cool when I was scared of letting go
I know I needed you
But I never showed
But I wanna stay with you until we're grey and old
Just say you won't let go
Just say you won't let go
I'll wake you up with some breakfast in bed
I'll bring you coffee with a kiss on your head
And I'll take the kids to school
Wave them goodbye
And I'll thank my lucky stars for that night
When you looked over your shoulder
For a minute, I forget that I'm older
I wanna dance with you right now
Oh, and you look as beautiful as ever
And I swear that everyday'll get better
You make me feel this way somehow
We've come so far my dear
Look how we've grown
And I wanna stay with you until we're grey and old
Just say you won't let go
Oh, just say you won't let go
(Say You Won't Let Go: Neil Ormandy, James Arthur, Steve Solomon – 2016)
At some point last year, Kathy noted that it appeared that I’d discontinued my tradition of writing Valentine blogs about her. I was embarrassed by her mentioning this at first, thinking that she was interpreting it as a diminishment of my love for her. A bit flustered, I answered as truthfully as I could, explaining that I was waiting for a new idea to write about. I didn’t want to keep repeating the same things over and over again. Time passed, Valentine’s Day came and went, but it wasn’t until I had lunch with an old girl friend from high school and college, that a prompt for an essay emerged.
A few months after my 50th High School Reunion of the Class of 1966, in around February of 2017, I had lunch with Mary. Over the years, we had met up and chatted at each of the previous 4 or 5 reunions, but never really talked for any great length of time. Reunions are great opportunities for seeing old friends and classmates, but they are poor vehicles for meaningful or insightful questioning or conversation. At the close of that evening, as the reunion was breaking up, and various groups of friends going to dinner at different places, Mary and I promised to reconnect and make plans for a quiet lunch someplace with just the two of us, so we could actually converse about the past and the present.
Although I was introduced to Mary during my freshman year, and we said “ hi and bye” to each when passing in the hallways, I really didn’t get to know her until my junior year, when I qualified for the California Scholarship Federation (CSF) Honor Society. She was the club’s president or vice-president, and always eager to get new members involved and active. I remember her as a tall, attractive girl, with long black hair that curled at her shoulders, and starry eyes that gave her an air of intelligence and wonder. Since she had a steady boyfriend whom I knew and liked, there was never any tension or nervousness in our interactions. I could just like her as a classmate and friend, and a girl who also had a mischievous side to her. On a lark, she and another girl I knew, Joanne, toilet-papered my house the summer we graduated in retaliation for my having toilet-papered Joanne’s home a few months before. I lost contact with her in college, until one day in my junior year I saw her crossing Royce Quad at UCLA. It was there I learned that she had just transferred from UC Santa Barbara. We saw each other on various occasions over the next two years, and I remember going by her apartment to hear her collection of Rod McKuen albums – trying not to make fun of this raspy-voiced singer/poet to whom she was devoted. Once we graduated in 1970, I lost contact with her – seeing her only at high school reunions.
The afternoon lunch was a delight. In a quiet Mediterranean Bistro, with only a few diners to distract us, we were finally able talk about our lives since high school and college. Mary filled me in on her story, and I told her mine. We talked of our marriages, our families, our professions, and our plans. And I also took the opportunity of asking the juvenile questions I always wondered about, but never dared ask – the only stipulation being that they had to be questions I was willing to answer myself: Which high school friends did you maintain through the years? Did you have sex in high school? Who were the classmates that we learned were gay? What got you into your career field? The one burning question I was most curious about was, “Why did you marry Russ?”
Russ was a quirky high school classmate who I befriended in my junior year. We double dated a few times, and went on a couple of short road trips in his Corvette convertible, where we would talk and talk about college and our futures. We both enrolled at UCLA, and attended a few Political Science classes together while we had the same major, but saw less and less of each other when I changed to History. After graduation I learned that he and Mary had married, and I always wondered why? Knowing the two of them as I did, and their differing personalities and tastes, I could never imagine them as being compatible.
As best I can recall, Mary gave a smiling sigh at my question, and gazed away for a moment before saying something like this:
“Well, I suppose because he was so persistent, and I finally relented.”
She went on to describe where they had moved to after marrying, and the difficulties they experienced there, finally ending in divorce, but I was still stuck on her initial statement. I shook my head in bewildered puzzlement. I couldn’t imagine her just giving in to a suitor’s relentless pursuit, no matter how ardent. Mary was too smart, independent, and brave, and I couldn’t understand how persistence proved to be the deciding factor. We continued talking about other things at the bistro, and ended the afternoon with promises of keeping in touch, and calling when we found ourselves near our respective homes.
However, I kept musing about Mary’s response on the drive home, seeing Russ as a love-grazed stalker, pestering her with phone calls, flowers, and gifts, and mailing her love poems. I pictured him skulking outside her apartment, waiting for a sight of her, and standing guard so as to prevent the intrusion of any other suitor. Later that evening, when I described the lunch and my bewilderment at Mary’s response to Kathy, she looked at me with a funny expression. With a smile, she said something to the effect that “one could say that you were a little relentless in your pursuit of me.”
Now it was Kathy’s comment that plagued me, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. Surely I could never have been the obsessed, persistent suitor that I imagined Russ to be. My relationship with Kathy had always been reasonable and evenly balanced, with our love for each other progressing at the same speed and rate. But now I wasn’t sure. So I did some research and found excerpts of some old essays I had written eleven years ago on this subject:
A few years ago, I found a diary that I began on February 26, 1974. The diary described 22 days, from February to March (during the first oil crisis), when I was crazy in love. I was 27 years old, and in love for the first time in my life with the most enchanting and beautiful girl in the world. How could I not fall in love with this lovely, young beauty, named Kathleen Mavourneen? She had Las Vegas Showgirl legs and figure, with a gorgeous, beaming, Irish-American face. She was smart, fearless, caring, and funny. I knew I was in love with her after our third date…
At the end of that evening, I remember a moment watching Kathy walk toward the front door of her parent’s home on Weddington Street. Suddenly a scene from Tolstoy’s War and Peace popped to my head, and I thought, “if she turns her head to look back at me, that will be the girl I marry”. I recall that moment as if it were yesterday: Kathy stopped as she grasped the doorknob, turned to look back at me, and smiled over her shoulder as she entered the door and disappeared. The ground quaked beneath my feet, and I knew my life had changed forever. I somehow knew that I was in LOVE for the first time in my life, and the possibility of marriage entered my consciousness. What was unusual about this sudden development was the fact that I felt no panic or bewilderment at the speed of this realization. Falling in love with Kathy, and accepting the possibility (inevitability?) of marriage was the most natural feeling in the world (like falling off a log). There was something “right” about Kathy, our relationship, and the trajectory it was taking. With her in my life, I need never look back…
As I read this long forgotten diary, I was struck by what a tumultuous time it was for Kathy and me! We were on roller coasters of desires, emotions, doubts, and fears, which sometimes went in opposite directions. It was also the period when our relationship reached its most critical point. Emotions and desires were moving so fast – faster than the rational mind could process or understand – that Kathy called a halt. In a lonely parking structure in Santa Monica, on a Sunday afternoon, Kathy’s uncertainty brought our relationship to a stop. Her doubts and confusion caught me by surprise, and I was stunned by my panic and fear. I could not envision existence without her in my life. In this paralyzed state, I managed not to contradict what she was telling me. I was somehow able not press her to reconsider, and I did not dismiss her feeling and doubts. Despite my fears, I needed her to choose, all the time praying that she would choose me. I stopped pretending cool detachment of my love and my need for Kathleen. I had to trust, and be confident of the love we had ignited and expressed to each other. Putting aside my wants, needs, and desires for a moment, I tried to demonstrate care, understanding, and love toward my beloved. By the end of the diary, our relationship continued to mature, becoming more honest and open.
There was tons of emotional stuff in those 22 days. I tried to sift out some of the major themes and tendencies, but only one thing stood out; I was just crazy in love. Where did we go from that time in 1974? What happened from being crazy in love to now, going from 27 years of age to old age? Am I still crazy in love, today? No, thank God! I don’t think I could take that intensity of passion and desire again. It was all consuming. I couldn’t bear to be parted from Kathy in those days. I had to see, touch, or talk to her at least once a day. I was truly obsessed and in love. This was white-hot, passion. This was the steaming, molten lava type of love that can only cool after many, many years. The calming years came after we married: years of discovery, childbirths, parenting, wonders, challenges, and achievements. These were the middle age years that quieted the eruptions of passions and the desires of youth, and left a peaceful island of happiness and tranquility. Our marriage evolved into a family, a home, and a fulfilling life together.
After reading over those excerpt, and recalling the desperate love I felt for Kathy at that time, Mary’s answer to why she married Russ seemed accurate and insightful. I had been smug and foolish in my response, and I was ashamed of the way I had reacted. I finally remembered how powerful and overwhelming a force love and desire could be, because Kathy and I experienced them – and YES, I was persistent and relentless in the pursuit of the object of my desire. I also would not have given up if Kathy had not shared the same level of ardor. Even today, the residue of that youthful passion and devotion still survives – especially in the fact that I cannot envision living my life without her.
Ever since Kathy’s father died in 2015, and especially after my own mother died in 2017, Kathy and I started employing “gallows humor” when joking about which of us should die first.
“I want to die before you do,” I would say.
“No,” Kathy would respond, “I want to die first”.
We’d go back and forth this way for a while, and then confess that it would be difficult and lonely to go through the remainder of our lives alone. I think we both realized that this emotional sentiment was foolishness. My mom continued living 46 years without my father’s company, and all of her children recognize that, although difficult at first, they were years of happiness, joy, and satisfaction. Kathy’s father lived 9 more years after Mary passed away. One of us will survive the death of a spouse, and will continue enjoying the company of children, grandchildren, family, and friends – until we return to that place from which we came. But, I must confess, that I thought James Arthur was singing my lament when he pleaded to his beloved, “I wanna stay with you until we’re grey and old. Just say you won’t let go. Oh, just say you won’t let go”. And, although I know it is sentimental to say it, I will add: “I love you, Kathleen Mavourneen, as much today as on the first day I loved you”.
And for a minute, I was stone-cold sober.
I knew I loved you then
But you'd never know
'Cause I played it cool when I was scared of letting go
I know I needed you
But I never showed
But I wanna stay with you until we're grey and old
Just say you won't let go
Just say you won't let go
I'll wake you up with some breakfast in bed
I'll bring you coffee with a kiss on your head
And I'll take the kids to school
Wave them goodbye
And I'll thank my lucky stars for that night
When you looked over your shoulder
For a minute, I forget that I'm older
I wanna dance with you right now
Oh, and you look as beautiful as ever
And I swear that everyday'll get better
You make me feel this way somehow
We've come so far my dear
Look how we've grown
And I wanna stay with you until we're grey and old
Just say you won't let go
Oh, just say you won't let go
(Say You Won't Let Go: Neil Ormandy, James Arthur, Steve Solomon – 2016)
At some point last year, Kathy noted that it appeared that I’d discontinued my tradition of writing Valentine blogs about her. I was embarrassed by her mentioning this at first, thinking that she was interpreting it as a diminishment of my love for her. A bit flustered, I answered as truthfully as I could, explaining that I was waiting for a new idea to write about. I didn’t want to keep repeating the same things over and over again. Time passed, Valentine’s Day came and went, but it wasn’t until I had lunch with an old girl friend from high school and college, that a prompt for an essay emerged.
A few months after my 50th High School Reunion of the Class of 1966, in around February of 2017, I had lunch with Mary. Over the years, we had met up and chatted at each of the previous 4 or 5 reunions, but never really talked for any great length of time. Reunions are great opportunities for seeing old friends and classmates, but they are poor vehicles for meaningful or insightful questioning or conversation. At the close of that evening, as the reunion was breaking up, and various groups of friends going to dinner at different places, Mary and I promised to reconnect and make plans for a quiet lunch someplace with just the two of us, so we could actually converse about the past and the present.
Although I was introduced to Mary during my freshman year, and we said “ hi and bye” to each when passing in the hallways, I really didn’t get to know her until my junior year, when I qualified for the California Scholarship Federation (CSF) Honor Society. She was the club’s president or vice-president, and always eager to get new members involved and active. I remember her as a tall, attractive girl, with long black hair that curled at her shoulders, and starry eyes that gave her an air of intelligence and wonder. Since she had a steady boyfriend whom I knew and liked, there was never any tension or nervousness in our interactions. I could just like her as a classmate and friend, and a girl who also had a mischievous side to her. On a lark, she and another girl I knew, Joanne, toilet-papered my house the summer we graduated in retaliation for my having toilet-papered Joanne’s home a few months before. I lost contact with her in college, until one day in my junior year I saw her crossing Royce Quad at UCLA. It was there I learned that she had just transferred from UC Santa Barbara. We saw each other on various occasions over the next two years, and I remember going by her apartment to hear her collection of Rod McKuen albums – trying not to make fun of this raspy-voiced singer/poet to whom she was devoted. Once we graduated in 1970, I lost contact with her – seeing her only at high school reunions.
The afternoon lunch was a delight. In a quiet Mediterranean Bistro, with only a few diners to distract us, we were finally able talk about our lives since high school and college. Mary filled me in on her story, and I told her mine. We talked of our marriages, our families, our professions, and our plans. And I also took the opportunity of asking the juvenile questions I always wondered about, but never dared ask – the only stipulation being that they had to be questions I was willing to answer myself: Which high school friends did you maintain through the years? Did you have sex in high school? Who were the classmates that we learned were gay? What got you into your career field? The one burning question I was most curious about was, “Why did you marry Russ?”
Russ was a quirky high school classmate who I befriended in my junior year. We double dated a few times, and went on a couple of short road trips in his Corvette convertible, where we would talk and talk about college and our futures. We both enrolled at UCLA, and attended a few Political Science classes together while we had the same major, but saw less and less of each other when I changed to History. After graduation I learned that he and Mary had married, and I always wondered why? Knowing the two of them as I did, and their differing personalities and tastes, I could never imagine them as being compatible.
As best I can recall, Mary gave a smiling sigh at my question, and gazed away for a moment before saying something like this:
“Well, I suppose because he was so persistent, and I finally relented.”
She went on to describe where they had moved to after marrying, and the difficulties they experienced there, finally ending in divorce, but I was still stuck on her initial statement. I shook my head in bewildered puzzlement. I couldn’t imagine her just giving in to a suitor’s relentless pursuit, no matter how ardent. Mary was too smart, independent, and brave, and I couldn’t understand how persistence proved to be the deciding factor. We continued talking about other things at the bistro, and ended the afternoon with promises of keeping in touch, and calling when we found ourselves near our respective homes.
However, I kept musing about Mary’s response on the drive home, seeing Russ as a love-grazed stalker, pestering her with phone calls, flowers, and gifts, and mailing her love poems. I pictured him skulking outside her apartment, waiting for a sight of her, and standing guard so as to prevent the intrusion of any other suitor. Later that evening, when I described the lunch and my bewilderment at Mary’s response to Kathy, she looked at me with a funny expression. With a smile, she said something to the effect that “one could say that you were a little relentless in your pursuit of me.”
Now it was Kathy’s comment that plagued me, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. Surely I could never have been the obsessed, persistent suitor that I imagined Russ to be. My relationship with Kathy had always been reasonable and evenly balanced, with our love for each other progressing at the same speed and rate. But now I wasn’t sure. So I did some research and found excerpts of some old essays I had written eleven years ago on this subject:
A few years ago, I found a diary that I began on February 26, 1974. The diary described 22 days, from February to March (during the first oil crisis), when I was crazy in love. I was 27 years old, and in love for the first time in my life with the most enchanting and beautiful girl in the world. How could I not fall in love with this lovely, young beauty, named Kathleen Mavourneen? She had Las Vegas Showgirl legs and figure, with a gorgeous, beaming, Irish-American face. She was smart, fearless, caring, and funny. I knew I was in love with her after our third date…
At the end of that evening, I remember a moment watching Kathy walk toward the front door of her parent’s home on Weddington Street. Suddenly a scene from Tolstoy’s War and Peace popped to my head, and I thought, “if she turns her head to look back at me, that will be the girl I marry”. I recall that moment as if it were yesterday: Kathy stopped as she grasped the doorknob, turned to look back at me, and smiled over her shoulder as she entered the door and disappeared. The ground quaked beneath my feet, and I knew my life had changed forever. I somehow knew that I was in LOVE for the first time in my life, and the possibility of marriage entered my consciousness. What was unusual about this sudden development was the fact that I felt no panic or bewilderment at the speed of this realization. Falling in love with Kathy, and accepting the possibility (inevitability?) of marriage was the most natural feeling in the world (like falling off a log). There was something “right” about Kathy, our relationship, and the trajectory it was taking. With her in my life, I need never look back…
As I read this long forgotten diary, I was struck by what a tumultuous time it was for Kathy and me! We were on roller coasters of desires, emotions, doubts, and fears, which sometimes went in opposite directions. It was also the period when our relationship reached its most critical point. Emotions and desires were moving so fast – faster than the rational mind could process or understand – that Kathy called a halt. In a lonely parking structure in Santa Monica, on a Sunday afternoon, Kathy’s uncertainty brought our relationship to a stop. Her doubts and confusion caught me by surprise, and I was stunned by my panic and fear. I could not envision existence without her in my life. In this paralyzed state, I managed not to contradict what she was telling me. I was somehow able not press her to reconsider, and I did not dismiss her feeling and doubts. Despite my fears, I needed her to choose, all the time praying that she would choose me. I stopped pretending cool detachment of my love and my need for Kathleen. I had to trust, and be confident of the love we had ignited and expressed to each other. Putting aside my wants, needs, and desires for a moment, I tried to demonstrate care, understanding, and love toward my beloved. By the end of the diary, our relationship continued to mature, becoming more honest and open.
There was tons of emotional stuff in those 22 days. I tried to sift out some of the major themes and tendencies, but only one thing stood out; I was just crazy in love. Where did we go from that time in 1974? What happened from being crazy in love to now, going from 27 years of age to old age? Am I still crazy in love, today? No, thank God! I don’t think I could take that intensity of passion and desire again. It was all consuming. I couldn’t bear to be parted from Kathy in those days. I had to see, touch, or talk to her at least once a day. I was truly obsessed and in love. This was white-hot, passion. This was the steaming, molten lava type of love that can only cool after many, many years. The calming years came after we married: years of discovery, childbirths, parenting, wonders, challenges, and achievements. These were the middle age years that quieted the eruptions of passions and the desires of youth, and left a peaceful island of happiness and tranquility. Our marriage evolved into a family, a home, and a fulfilling life together.
After reading over those excerpt, and recalling the desperate love I felt for Kathy at that time, Mary’s answer to why she married Russ seemed accurate and insightful. I had been smug and foolish in my response, and I was ashamed of the way I had reacted. I finally remembered how powerful and overwhelming a force love and desire could be, because Kathy and I experienced them – and YES, I was persistent and relentless in the pursuit of the object of my desire. I also would not have given up if Kathy had not shared the same level of ardor. Even today, the residue of that youthful passion and devotion still survives – especially in the fact that I cannot envision living my life without her.
Ever since Kathy’s father died in 2015, and especially after my own mother died in 2017, Kathy and I started employing “gallows humor” when joking about which of us should die first.
“I want to die before you do,” I would say.
“No,” Kathy would respond, “I want to die first”.
We’d go back and forth this way for a while, and then confess that it would be difficult and lonely to go through the remainder of our lives alone. I think we both realized that this emotional sentiment was foolishness. My mom continued living 46 years without my father’s company, and all of her children recognize that, although difficult at first, they were years of happiness, joy, and satisfaction. Kathy’s father lived 9 more years after Mary passed away. One of us will survive the death of a spouse, and will continue enjoying the company of children, grandchildren, family, and friends – until we return to that place from which we came. But, I must confess, that I thought James Arthur was singing my lament when he pleaded to his beloved, “I wanna stay with you until we’re grey and old. Just say you won’t let go. Oh, just say you won’t let go”. And, although I know it is sentimental to say it, I will add: “I love you, Kathleen Mavourneen, as much today as on the first day I loved you”.
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Date: 2018-05-13 09:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-05-13 09:22 pm (UTC)