26 May 2007

Entangled

The non-specific longing that engulfed me at age 15 remains the most sustained spasm of feeling I have ever experienced. I had always been prone to crushes and flights of fantasy, but as my freshman year of high school commenced, I became a heat-seeking boyfriend missile--only, my guidance system was completely off. The resultant frustration and loneliness were 24-hours-and-7-days challenging.
 
I expended a lot of energy imagining the scenarios that would result in BOYFRIEND. Every school-dance poster brought a surge of hope--although my stepfather held the keys to my fate there, as he would capriciously decide whether I could go or not. Usually, he said that I couldn't. Since these dances involved a nighttime subway trip from Queens to NYC and back, I could understand, even when his decision devastated me. And even when I did go, I pressed my back against the wall and observed blocky movements out on the floor, mentally beating myself for being a non-entity.
 
By sophomore year, I'd crafted a master plan of sleepovers at my friend Alexandra's house that released me into the latenight Manhattan world. With emerging bravery, I displayed my best dance moves with various crush victims (never slow-dancing, sadly). Almost always, there were exhilarating post-dance conversations with those same quarries at bars or ice-cream parlors or pizza places--the oases of colored light in the blackness of New York night. Nonetheless, and maddeningly, I was still unable to maneuver a boy into asking me out. Or even spontaneously kissing me. Much less kissing me.
 
One problem was, I had absolutely no idea what I would do to said elusive boyfriend if I got my trembling hands on him. I had long since received the stone tablets of the facts of life, handed down by my mother when I was in fourth grade. (Bless her for understanding that I was intellectually ready and thirsty to know.)  I consumed young-adult romances like they were self-help books. I certainly understood that there was kissing, and then there was kissing. I knew a boy's trembling hands would start wandering around my shirt front at some point, once kissing commenced. And I had read plenty about the post-foreplay penetration...an activity so mind-blowingly absurd that I dismissed it from any considerations. At any rate, these physical movements existed in a black box of actual sensation. So, essentially, I desperately craved a black box.
 
I did think I knew what it would feel like to have a constant companion--a love sidekick--who would share my interests, praise my music choices, laugh with me, read my writing, and sling an arm around my back when I wasn't expecting it, to remind me that I finally existed in a circle. I belonged. Perhaps this was a lot to load on the average teenage boy.
 
Perhaps it wasn't.
 
Reader, I met him. In the most mundane place: French class. He sat alongside me--assigned seats--and for months I had taken notice of his longish light-brown hair that curled despite any efforts to comb it, the relative heft of his shoulders inside the navy-blue blazer we all had to wear, the stylish corduroys (1979, remember) and the smiling eyes behind big aviators (again, 1979). One day I took notice of something far more revelatory: he had doodled Yes on his notebook. The band name. In its logotype.
 
This, I could launch a conversation out of. For which I must be eternally grateful to my brother, the music fanatic, who had long since infected me with encyclopedic knowledge and my-band's-better-than-yours attitude.
 
"Rob," I said casually, "you like Yes?"
 
He turned left and met my gaze. "Yeah!" he said eagerly. "Seen them a few times live, in fact. They're incredible. [Insert an excited discourse about their elaborate stage set, which I listened to indulgently.] Why, do you like them?"
 
I tilted my head in somewhat-assent. "Yeah," I said. "But Genesis is better."
 
His eyes popped. Really, they did. Score. Rob's response was a diatribe that included words like "sucks." Thus raising my hackles. And for weeks after, we traded barbs about Genesis versus Yes, making escalating claims of superiority based on music that we had rushed home to listen to the night before. A spiraling keyboard solo here, a particularly inspiring vocal there. Guitar prowess. Drum dominance. All delivered to each other across the bow of our French desks, with the slightest twinkle in our eyes.
 
As the dialogue continued, we both started making concessions about the other's favorite, because I was popping in my brother's Yes tapes for comparative purposes, and Rob had taken to analyzing Genesis as closely as Yes. So I became familiar with many of Yes' charms, Rob developed serious fondness for Genesis, and our arguments morphed into encouragements.
 
Most importantly, all this prog rock gave final shape to my burgeoning sense of romance. Cool water on the hot rocks of my wanting. These bands did everything BIG, with ebbs and swells of sound, and lyrics at once obscure and emotionally charged. I felt championed and supported by this music; long nights alone in my room were less desolate.
 
It would be untrue to say that the Genesis-Yes Wars (as Rob and I came to refer to them) were an instant guarantor of romance. No, it took an agonizing year for that to happen. Turns out that Rob was as constrained by inexperience and urgency as I was. But we forged a friendship that ranged beyond music, got to know each other's quirks (plenty on both sides), made each other laugh all the time...became companions. Finally, in the spring of 1980, Rob's friend Larry--an everlasting sparkplug, one of the funniest people I've ever known--became impatient with all of this mooning in the guise of friendship. He prodded Rob to take action, even gave him careful instructions--just as my friends began insisting that I had to do something (because they were dog-tired of hearing me moan about it). And they were right: I had taken to making journal entries in grey marker, for God's sake, to reflect the hopeless that wrapped around me. Besotted poetry excerpt from said journal:
 
a journey into the center of your eyes takes me
farther into myself than I'd ever believed was possible...
joins your dreams with mine
and makes them all come true
and makes your thoughts my words...
 
A pounding in my head: Rob, Rob, Rob. And yet every day I hung out with him cheerfully, never giving voice to anything I was feeling.
 
I always figured that a boy would ask me out under cover of darkness. Hence my frequent engineering of sleepovers, so I could make myself available for the big mo. Yet Rob chose full-on afternoon, in Central Park...a place we had been together many, many times, just two blocks from our school. In fact, the Park was the refuge for those of us who despised the sweaty drill of gym class. Improbably, instead of gym, we dissenters were allowed to go to the Park without a teacher and jog. (I know, it strains the imagination, doesn't it? So 20th century.) A ragtag band of about eight kids would bang out of the gym doors, blinking in sudden sunshine, and head two blocks west. Once the Park's majestic treetops became visible, a subgroup of stoners would veer off to the right, and the rest of us would go to the Reservoir and make some attempt to plod faster than usual around a wide oval. Rob and I used this time for deep conversations, which would start to get breathless until we gave up on trotting and returned to sensible walking.
 
That fateful day, spring had overswept the city, dressing its greys in ballgowns of blossoms. As we half-jogged, Rob and I engaged in a strange, stilted conversation about the idea of going out as we walked the Park paths. I don't think I overwhelmed him with enthusiasm, because a) I was constricted with nerves, and b) I had finally learned something about not scaring off my prey. After the words had been released, rendering us boyfriend and girlfriend in name only, we returned to school--gym was the last class of the day. Once we had changed clothes and the final bell rang by the lockers, Rob and I reconvened and headed for 86th Street, to grab the subway downtown.
 
For an hour now, ever since the conversation, I'd felt like a newborn--overwhelmed by the everyday. Now everything was different in the context of everything being the same. I wondered if I would feel this way forever, until Rob snapped me out of it. At the mouth of the station on 86th and Lex--where streams of people crisscross on the sidewalk, either heading down into the subway, or coming up from it--he stopped me by touching my arm, and then he delivered one electric kiss right there where we stood. My lips tingled with the jolt. As we took the grimy steps downward, I didn't feel the impact under my feet. Perhaps I really was floating.
 
Why am I reliving this? Well, last Thursday, Genesis was issued some kind of Rock Honors thing from VH1. Now, 27 years after I championed them between filmstrips in French class, they are being acknowledged as innovators, masters, leaders. No matter. They were all of those things for me back then, and as the VH1 broadcast brought the full range of their music to the masses, I sat back on the sofa, overspread with the heady, painful confusion and the final sweet payoff of 1980.
 
Tune in next time for: How Alcohol Led to Kissing.  

08 May 2007

The Diamond Anniversary

On May 8, 1932, a 35-year-old woman prepared for her wedding. A wedding she never expected to have, which resulted from a love story she never expected to be living. Her intended was 28 years old, a Canadian who had moved to her small Maine town eight years ago. You could say they were a study in contrasts: Fred was 5-foot-9, the very definition of strapping.

Whereas Theresa (always called Tut) was 5-foot-2 in her shoes. Even in her 30s, she was as adorable and diminutive as a doll.


Tut's temperament was doll-like, too…cheery, loving, and devoted. Fred--well, Fred was devoted to her, there was no question of that. But impatient! oh, never could anyone become exasperated like him. Not angry, not mean…just sputtery and annoyed. Tut smiled to herself whenever she thought of it. This man endeared himself to her with every fluster, every bluster. She calmed Fred, soothed him, and humored him. He had never smiled the way that she made him smile.

But married, she never expected. Fred started courting Tut when he was barely 21. How many times had she shaken her red-haired head and redirected him to a younger single woman in town? She thought Fred charming and insistent, but just a little misguided. Because Tut's devotion was to her parents. As their youngest, she had pledged that she would never leave home. Six siblings had left before her, married, and produced some two dozen children among them--all of whom cherished their Aunt Tutty for her uncomplicated generosity and young spirit. But really, Tut stayed behind for an unspoken reason that caused her pain, alarm, and concern in a mixed jumble: her parents' relationship was frayed, if not ruined completely.

Mama had always relied on her four daughters for house-tending and chores…even for cooking. With Mama now in her seventies, Tut was left to manage the household. What's worse, Mama held a seething grudge against her husband for the loss of their first home to foreclosure, two decades before. Tut adored her papa, who was temperamentally more like her than anyone else in the entire family. Papa was a peacemaker, an oasis of calm. Mama's fiery Irish ways may have drawn him irresistibly in their youth, but now she threatened to overwhelm him with spite. Tut served as their bridge, and for love of both of them, she would never leave.

Fred knew all of this. Years prior, he had heard it in conversation with Tut (as well as her friends, who privately mourned the spinster path she was on). Then, Fred gradually got to know her family. He saw the jagged dynamics in person. And he made a simple statement to the beautiful woman he wanted to marry: "I will never take you away. If you want to live with your parents, I'll do that."

Tut let herself fall in love with him at that moment. But she didn't let on, right away. Fred's desire, his adoration was almost too much for her to bear. Whenever she looked in the mirror, she saw a woman eight years his senior. What kind of existence would this be for a young man in his twenties, the prime of his life? Why, at her age, she probably wouldn't even be able to bear him one child, let alone the many that her sisters had borne.

On May 8, 1932, Theresa adjusted her hair nervously in that same mirror. She wore a modest dress, not fancy wedding attire. Fred was a Methodist, and Tut was devoutly Catholic. For this reason, the wedding was to be held in the rectory of the church: a non-event, meant to deflect attention. Her sister and brother-in-law would serve as witnesses. No guests, no rice, no toasts, no extravagance. Just two people--opposites, attracted--in a small town.

Make that three people. Inside her that day, Tut nurtured a new life--the hidden fact of a pregnancy. Her lifelong modesty makes it impossible to imagine the moment that she gave in to Fred's advances. In a boxy old car? Unthinkable. In her parents' house? Never. In the rooming house where Fred lived sparsely? Doubtful. The place is not important, anyway. Somehow, in the winter of 1932, Fred had convinced Tut. And at the age of 35, she must have asked herself, what was there to lose, really?

No one in Millinocket, Maine, would have been surprised at the subsequent wedding of Fred and Tut. There was nothing abrupt about it; they had been dating for four years solid. Surely their acquaintances rejoiced, having known for years what a perfect couple they made. And her nieces and nephews clung to Fred's lanky frame as though he were already their uncle. Therefore, the baby that Tut carried on May 8 remained a closely held secret. Instead, a few weeks after the priest pronounced them man and wife, Tut and Fred shared joyful news with family and friends that made sense in the timeline: now, they were expecting.

Tut's parents allotted the newlyweds the upstairs of their old, austere house. Tut, who had worked all of her adult life as a gregarious telephone operator, gave up her job and took an even more active role in her parents' daily lives. Fred worked long hours as a railroad telegrapher to support them.

Some months later, the trees were bare, the winds grew cold, and the birth of their baby was nearing--substantially sooner than anyone would have thought. In a masterstroke of plotting, Tut was sent south on the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad to visit her sister Nellie in Augusta. There, Tut awaited her confinement, which came "prematurely" (Fred told the folks back home). Her sister was undoubtedly in on the ruse. In Augusta, on November 27, 1932, Tut delivered a full-term baby girl.

Perhaps Tut would have been better off delivering a preemie. Her tiny pelvis struggled with the birthing, and in the days afterwards, she experienced intestinal difficulties that threatened her life. At one point, the doctor admonished Fred: "Don't ever get her pregnant again." He visibly blanched, nodding his assent.

These events of 75 years ago are part of my DNA. The baby girl was my mother, Maryann. Tut and Fred were my beloved grandparents, from whom I learned about marital love, attraction, respect, and cooperation. It is nearly impossible to explain how safe and cherished I felt in their company--it was beyond a parenting relationship, into something spiritual, a glow that suffused me.

It wasn't until my young adulthood that I learned the full story surrounding this wedding day, and the secret they harbored throughout the years. As the puzzle pieces fell into place, I understood why they never, ever celebrated their anniversary, why they had no wedding pictures, no wedding memories. And as I contemplated all of these events on this year's anniversary--which I choose to commemorate, despite the fact that both Fred and Tut are both deceased--I couldn't help but wonder at the contrast between their surreptitious wedding day, and their lifelong, deep-rooted, inspiring love for each other. In my life, I've met maybe a dozen married couples whose bond and friendship is immediately, tangibly obvious. I compare all of them to my grandparents, who showed me that first.



How sad that the day these loving people were married brought them guilt and shame. How triumphant that they stayed together for life, and never let that submerged secret spoil what they had. My mother's birth, after the complications were cleared, fulfilled both of them in a way I don't think they had anticipated. And while I know they ached for more children, Fred would never have risked losing his sweet wife. Instead, when their two grandchildren arrived, they shared all of that long-held parenting energy with my brother and me. For that, I owe them everything.

Through all of the tumult and nerves, 75 years ago, I can see a moment in the rectory--maybe when the priest was droning from a text in front of him, maybe when the plain gold bands were exchanged--when Fred looked at Tut, caught her eye, and smiled that mischievous and satisfied smile that only she could elicit. And at that moment, I know she smiled right back. Her misgivings had been foolish. He was the one.

An important footnote to this story: up until tonight, I had never seen a photograph of my grandparents' wedding day. I decided to flip through my digital archives to illustrate this story--I have many images of them, just not of their wedding.

Two years ago, my cousin Earle e-mailed me some images, and those were among the files I looked at tonight. I'm very fond of one of them, which appears below. Ever since Earle sent it, I've puzzled over it: why are Nana and Grampy standing there so awkwardly, on the right? Who are the two people with them? Where are they, anyway?


In a bolt of clarity that any genealogist will understand, I suddenly realized tonight that this is the only surviving wedding picture. They are standing on a hillside: that's right across the street from Millinocket's Catholic church. I know that hill like the back of my hand. The two people on the left? That's the witnesses, Eugene and Essie.

First I felt driven to write about their wedding day, and then, I saw it. The ancestors speak to us, that's all I can tell you. And tonight, their diamond anniversary, they led me to this.